


Unearthed

by Paranoixa



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Bismuth's Origins, Gem War, Gem origins, Grief Mishandling, Oppression, Shattering - Freeform, Slavery, The Bispearl doesn't happen til later on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-05 18:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15176513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paranoixa/pseuds/Paranoixa
Summary: Crystal Gems aren't made; they're rather an evolved creature from regular Gems. A creature that, after inevitably seeing the injustice that is their lives, decided to break away from the norm and fight. But even evolution has its ups and downs; homes can be destroyed, identities can be lost, and friends can be shattered. All in the pursuit of something greater, for all Gemkind. As the Gem War wages, Bismuth will see all of this and more. And maybe along the way, with the help of some friends, she'll redefine her reason for fighting for earth. ON HIATUS.





	1. Woke

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! So I've got a pretty big chunk of this written. Depending on how this is received and how busy I'll be in the coming months, I'll continue to write it. As it stands, I'm feeling pretty comfortable, so I think we'll at least get some Bispearl in, though I can't guarantee this'll be finished. Anyway, really excited about this story (Bismuth is one of my favorite Gems); hope you guys like it.

She’ll never admit it, but she panics upon awakening.  
Being alive, being so aware of her environment and others, is something she’ll never take for granted. But before exploring her compound, before being sent to countless planets for colonization, before that life-changing assignment, there is nothing but soil; an arid, lifeless soil that has encaged her and prevents her from moving onto the next step.  
It doesn’t take long to claw through the dirt, though her limbs are exhausted and numb by the time she breaks through the wall and crashes to the ground. Bismuth falls several feet and collides with the dry ground with a groan.  
When she looks up, she finds a Bismuth with a red apron staring down at her. She pulls the newly emerged Gem to her feet before proceeding to lead her away from the exit hole. “Come”, she says. “We’ve work to do.” She leads her through the crowd of Gems to a hexagonal structure that sits just outside the Kindergarden. Once there, Red leads Bismuth to a squat building and pauses before the front desk. Above this desk, several tubes extend from the ceiling, ending just above the carefully placed pads atop the desk. The walls of the building have holes of various sizes. Before Bismuth can venture off to further inspect them, the Agate standing behind the counter clears her throat.  
“Evening, Facet 3”, Red greets. “I’m here to gather assignment for this Bismuth.”  
The Agate takes a quick look at Bismuth, then pushes a grey button on the wall. Moments later, a tablet sneezes through one of the dangling tubes and lands with a soft thud. The Agate then stands from her seat and retreats into the back, later returning with a cart of tools. She pushes the cart towards them and tosses the tablet at Bismuth. Fumbling with the device, Bismuth turns to Red and stares, eyes wide and uncertain as Red rummages through the cart.  
“Your instructions are in there”, Red says without looking up.  
“Instructions?” Bismuth averts her attention to the tablet and taps her fingers against the screen. A single message pops onto the screen, explaining for Bismuth to travel to the Introduction Center and receive instruction. “We’ve already done this. Right?”  
“There are more. They should come in sometime tomorrow.”  
“Okay. What will I be doing?”  
“Making buildings?”  
She frowns. Discarding the tablet on the counter, Bismuth pulls the cart back towards her; Red looks up, eyebrows raised. “Is there a problem?”  
“Yes, I’m confused. What do I do when I’m finished with these buildings? Is there a home for me to go to or people to see?”  
Red’s face contorts, and the Agate behind the counter snickers. Red retrieves the tablet once more, shoves it back into Bismuth’s hand, then grabs her shoulder and leads her out of the center. “You don’t do anything”, she says with a sideways glance. “You get a three hours rest every five days, but after constructing one building, you just move onto the next building.  
A Topaz bumps into Bismuth’s shoulder, and Bismuth hisses. She turns around (to do what?) but frowns when she finds the Gem to have disappeared into the crowd. She turns her attention back to keeping up with Red and falls into step beside her. “And after that?”  
“You go onto the next building.”  
“And then?”  
Red turns around, pausing the cart, and glares. Once Bismuth falls silent, eyes lowering to the older Bismuth’s shoes, Red shakes her head. “You are a Bismuth, and you were created to build.”  
“And that’s it?”  
“That’s it. I’d suggest you get to work before I write a report to Blue Diamond.”  
Bismuth looks back up. Something warm flushes through her, and she shudders. “Who-Who’s that?”  
“Our leader, of course.” Red rolls her eyes and pushes the cart to Bismuth. “And she’d be none too happy to hear of a subordinate questioning her authority. She’s no tolerance for malformality.”  
“But I wasn’t questioning her!” Bismuth tightly grips the bars of her cart and gulps. “I-I’m just confused. I want to make...my Diamond happy. I want to be a good Gem.”  
Red nods. “Then get to building.”  
Bismuth lowers her head, then begins pushing the cart, watching as the crowd swallows Red as she returns to the Kindergarden. “Yes, ma’am.”


	2. Assignment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bismuth's working with a friend and later has a chat with her fair Blue Diamond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I have not seen the latest Steven Bomb (that was a Bomb, right?), so please keep the spoilers to a minimum. I've heard of a few: that Bismuth's back (thank you!) and reformed (precious baby looks amazing), Garnet split up and reformed (also looks amazing) and maybe got married, and there's a Green Diamond (Momma Diamond, perhaps?), but that's about it. I know nothing else, and that little bit that I do know has literally no context aside from seeing YouTube thumbnails and me being a dumbass and visiting the SU wiki when I know there's new content. So please, if there's discussion of the latest episodes, let's try to keep it to a minimum. Okay, onto the chapter.

It’s during a run of the mill Kindergarten inspection when Bismuth first hears rumors of insurgency in Pink Diamond’s Colony.  
“Seriously”, she says, fingers firmly pressing into the dry soil beneath them. When all Beryl does is offer a cheeky smile, Bismuth rolls her eyes and wags a finger at her. “You’d better not be fucking with me.”  
Beryl, wand in hand, smirks and waves it over the soil Bismuth’s chosen to examine. “Such crude language. I don’t think you’re worthy of hearing gossip of this quality.”  
“How about we drop the priss act?” Bismuth nods to the popped buttons on Beryl’s blouse and sneers. “We all know what you get up to in the quarry before clocking in. Could be me but I don’t think our fair Diamonds would be too glad to hear about that.”  
She waves her free hand, then turns back to the soil. “Get with the times, Bis: sex has been legal for, like, eight years now. And, if you’ll believe the rumors, the Big Three have been screwing each other for centuries.” Her wand captivates the soil in a lightbeam, and it sifts, allowing for apt inspection. Her eyebrows scrunch together, and she crouches closer to the earth.  
“Yeah, and, speaking of rumors, you still haven’t told me about this rebellion shit.” Bismuth lowers beside Beryl and crosses her arms. “Come on, don’t leave a Gem hanging.”  
The wand chirps, and the soil to falls to the ground. Beryl hums, reaches into her satchel, and retrieves a tablet. She eyes the information spewing across the screen and nods. “Supposedly”, she says, glancing up to flash her teeth at Bismuth. “Miss Pink’s losing control of her subjects. There’s tell of a Rose Quartz refusing to gather materials and scheming with humans-”  
“Scheming about what?”  
Beryl frowns. When Bismuth, wide-eyed and fidgeting, doesn’t relent in her curiosity, she gives a faint shrug. “Heck if I know. I just know she was scheming.” Beryl shakes her head, her hair brushing against her shoulders like a soft fabric. “You always ask the weirdest questions. It’s no wonder you’re always in trouble.”  
Bismuth retreats, averting her eyes back to the soil. “Sorry”, she mutters, yanking a rock from the dirt. She tosses it against the wall, watching as it pierces the wall much like an unearthed Gem. Shoulders slumped, she turns back to Beryl and scowls. “And I’m not always in trouble.”  
“Uh, you kind of are.” She tucks her wand away before turning her attention back to her tablet. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t been shattered with a mind like that-”  
“Okay, okay, can we get back to the story?”  
“Fine. Anyway, so, apparently, this is the third or fifth time this Quartz has done this; the other Diamonds know about, and, as you can imagine, they ain’t happy about it. Especially Yellow, she was going on and on about how they should have never given Pink a Colony in the first place. Which I thought was a bit much because she can’t control what some insolent little Gem is doing. And it’s not like she hasn’t done plenty of other good things since she was granted her first colony.”  
Bismuth pulls a face. She considers voicing her opinion on the matter but, upon recalling Beryl’s earlier statements, settles for asking, “Where are you getting all this from?”  
She snickers and makes a pawing motion. “Darling, I’ve got my sources.”  
“Mm hm. Might this source be Yellow’s Pearl?”  
Beryl looks up from her tablet, mouth agape. “How’d you know?”  
“Everyone knows that Yellow’s Pearl can keep her mouth shut about as well as a Ruby can keep her temper.” She reaches for another rock and tosses it into the wall, smiling as it enters the earth beside the previous one. She folds her arms over her chest, turns her nose up, and says, “Kinda like a few other of Yellow’s Gems that I know.”  
“You’re really annoying, you know that?”  
“Just calling it as I see it, cuz.” She kicks at the ground; a cloud of red dust rises to their shoulders, cloaking their clothes with a fine powder. Bismuth wipes a hand over her face and stares at her uniform; her smile thins. “Rylie?”  
“It’s Beryl, dimwit.” Beryl turns her back to Bismuth and stands, searching for another patch of soil to examine.  
Bismuth sighs and grabs her shoulder. “Come on, I got a question.”  
“You always have questions”, Beryl mutters, briefly glancing over her shoulder. “I keep telling you, it’s gonna get you in trouble one day, and then I’ll have no one to bitch with.”  
“I doubt that.” Bismuth sits on the ground, legs spread into an inverted V, and places her knuckles beneath her chin. “There’s always gonna be news, and there’s always gonna be someone who wants to hear about it.”  
Beryl’s lips perk up at that. She rotates so that half her body faces Bismuth and tilts her head. “Your question?”  
Bismuth scoots closer. “This Rose Quartz. What do you think of her?”  
“I think she’s a silly, foolish Gem, who’ll likely be shattered if she doesn’t fall back in line. And even then, I doubt life’ll be too comfortable for her.”  
“Well, life isn’t exactly fuzzy as it is.”  
Beryl frowns. She swipes a hand over her tablet, then stands and continues down the winding path of the Kindergarten. “I really wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Bis.”  
“I don’t see why”, Bismuth huffs as they step around a mound of rocks. “It’s not like I’m gonna go on strike or anything. I’m just saying how I feel.”  
“You know we’re not supposed to feel”, Beryl admonishes, tossing her hands out in front of her. “We’re supposed to do what they want, when they want it, how they want it, and we are most definitely not supposed to question them.”  
“I’m not, okay? I’m not saying I want them to change the system or whatever. I know it’s needed, and I know people like Rose Quartz are a dangerous disruption to everyone in the system. I just don’t understand why they treat us like we aren’t people; like we’re just tools to completing their project of the day.”  
Beryl slides her tablet into her bag and shakes her head. She glances over the empty Kindergarten, then turns back to Bismuth. “You’re not supposed to understand”, she eventually says. “You’re just supposed to get the job done.”  
Bismuth’s shoulders sag. She stares ahead, allowing the elder Gem to take the lead. When Beryl crouches once more at the towering wall to their right, Bismuth sighs and draws closer. “Rylie?”  
“Yeah?”  
“The job sucks.”  
“I know, dear. Just keep that to yourself for now, okay?”  
“Okay.”  
. . .  
As per custom of a Bismuth, she’s a frequent guest to arenas. Since her unearthing, she’s visited and constructed thousands of them. Even if they vary in design, there’s something jarringly similar about them that makes navigating them a simple task. So when she goes to inspect the extending corridors of the arena, it doesn’t matter whether or not she’s never visited it before; the arenas are like the human body; they may seem to be different on the surface, but, hidden beneath, they’re all the same.  
“Just like Gems”, Bismuth murmurs from her post at the expansive window. “Only, we look alike on the outside, too.”  
From down below, cries of pain and joy grow in volume and intensity. Bismuth remains firm in position, arms folded behind her back as she tracks the growing fire upon the horizon. It’s nothing significant; “just a small wildfire that the local fauna will extinguish before it becomes an issue”, their Diamonds assured them before work this morning, faces as cold and placid as the sheets of steel lining making up the walls of the arena. At least, that was the disposition they’d been aiming for; Yellow and Blue were neatly composed, as always, but Pink was fidgety, tugging at her collar and darting her eyes away from the screen. It was a small thing, something a Gem shouldn’t have noticed; something that even Bismuth had actually written off until now. But now there’s a wildfire approaching the Jaded Colosseum, and, small as it may be, it reeks of change.  
“It’ll never break past the reef”, a polar voice notes, attracting the hairs along the back of Bismuth’s neck like a magnet.  
Bismuth turns, drops to a knee, and lowers her head. “Of course, my Diamond. It’s a pleasure to be in your presence.”  
Blue nods, then turns to the window. Brushing her fingers underneath Bismuth’s chin, she instructs her to do the same, and says, “The fire? It’ll be dead by morning.”  
Carefully glancing up through her dreadlocks, Bismuth taps her fingers against each other and bites her lower lip. “Do we know how it started?”  
“No, and we don’t care. It’s a fire, it’s threatening a section of my Court, and it will be extinguished. Be it naturally or by My hand, it will not live to see nightfall.” Blue turns to Bismuth, offering her a gentle yet keen smile. She lowers her hand behind Bismuth’s back, fingers reaching from the cusp of her neck to the end of her spine. She’s as cold as she is blue, and the skin that she touches burns with the kiss of winter. Bismuth shudders, hands coming to fold in front of her, and gulps as she glances up at Blue.   
“My-My Diamond?”  
“I’ve heard a great deal about you, Bismuth Facet 3 Cut 9xQ”, Blue begins as she instructs Bismuth to face her. Bismuth’s immediate reaction is to fall to her knee once more, but Blue is quicker, lightly swatting a hand against her legs to discourage the courtesy. “There’s no need for that.”  
“Yes, my Diamond. Apologies.” Her movements slow with apprehension, Bismuth stares up at Blue and clears her throat. “You, uh, you was saying that you’d heard of me before?”  
“Oh, yes. Many, many things. Your advisor, Bismuth Facet 3 Cut 6xE, says you’re quite the curious Gem.” Blue opens her palm and twirls her fingers; a double helix of ice forms between them before proceeding to spin, showcasing the crystalline pellets rushing along the cyan strands. “Tell me, Facet 9; what do you see here?”  
Bismuth frowns; she draws her head closer, eyes flicking up to meet Blue’s. “My Diamond-”  
“Don’t make me ask again, Facet.”   
“Right, right. Uh.” She shakes her head, exhales, then shrugs. “I dunno. Some helices and orbs. Right?”  
“No.” Blue pulls away and begins to walk through the corridor. The helices remain at her side, coming to a halt moments before their creator does. She looks over her shoulder, takes note of the idle Bismuth still standing beside the window, and cocks her head. “Come. Don’t keep me waiting.”  
Bismuth swallows the gathering saliva in her mouth and stumbles after her. When she falls in place half a centimeter behind Blue, Bismuth stares up between her locks and fumbles with the straps of her arpon. From below, the sound of metal piercing a solid arises, quickly succeeded by the sound of an exploding bag of star powder.   
Poof.   
It’s something Bismuth should be accustomed to, given that she’s been tending to this arena for several months now. But she’s never been so close to violence before, never seen the brutality in the recreational sports of her people. Prior to this assignment, there’d only been time for mending collapsing buildings, creating structures for newly established colonies, and forging the occasional trinket for a high ranking Gem; none of which put her in any line of danger and all of which she’d grown to take a liking to over the course of several centuries.   
Now, she works during fighting hours. Now, she creates scaffolding to keep the battling Gems from destroying the arena; it’s a simple job for even a Bismuth with her experience, so she’s often left with nothing to do but inspect the integrity of the structure. And when she’s finished with that, she, at her Diamond’s request, retreats to the arena to watch the remaining dozen battles.  
Needless to say, the Jaded Colosseum has to be her least favorite assignment.  
“I asked you what you saw”, Blue says, attracting Bismuth’s attention once more. The helices rotate beside her like an inanimate pet, intent on pleasing her even if it yields no conscience. As they pause to enter an elevator at the end of the corridor, light erupts from the small room and falls upon the double helix, creating a brief spectacle of blue and white beams before the door closes behind them.   
“And I, uh, I told you”, Bismuth replies meekly.   
“No, you told me what I want you to see. But what is it that you really see?”  
Bismuth flicks her eyes to the helixes, then back to Blue’s. When Blue’s stare remains firm, she turns back to the helices and guides her hands beneath them. The pellets are still moving, just as the helices are still rotating, though their velocity increases as they shift from Blue to Bismuth. Bismuth chances Blue one last glance before she inhales and begins. “You, my Diamond, and your, uh, colleagues are the helices. Us gems, we the ice pellets. We only exist, exist so efficiently, because we have you all to keep us stable, to guide us.”  
Blue smiles. “Yes. Now.” She reaches forward and removes a pellet from the strand. The pellet ahead begins to travel faster, and the one behind falters, causing those preceding it to pause as well. A few seconds pass, and the latter pellets resume their course but in the opposite direction, leaping onto their adjacent strand and causing a severe pileup amongst its corresponding pellets. Eventually, the pellets all fall off the helices, rushing towards the porcelain floor. But they evaporate just before impact, and, soon enough, Bismuth is left staring at a blank space on the floor. Above her hand, the helices still levitate; Blue has returned the initial pellet. It continues running along the strands, though at a considerably slower pace.  
“I assume you’ve heard the rumors”, Blue says as the elevator dings and opens its doors. The room is huge, and there rests an enormous table at the center.   
The Diamonds’ Table, Bismuth can’t help but mouth.  
“Pink has lost control of her Colony”, Blue continues, gesturing for Bismuth to follow her. “At first, we had reports of one deviant Gem, but now we know of three: a wayward Pearl, a revolting fusion between a Ruby and a Sapphire, and a confused Rose Quartz, who appears to be their leader. Nothing of substantial worry, I assure you, but it is something we can’t risk escalating.”  
“Of course.” Bismuth watches as Blue takes a seat at the table; Blue drapes one leg over the other and sits back in her chair, raising an arm to fiddle with the yard long hoop earrings dangling on either side of her chin. “You, Our Diamonds, will always take care of us”, Bismuth continues, transfixed by the sight.  
“Exactly.” Blue lowers a hand and gestures towards herself. “Come.”  
Bismuth adheres, scraping her boots against the floor before crawling into the large hand. Blue lifts her to her face faster than Bismuth had been expecting and stares. “I know you aren’t...content with your job.”  
“I-”  
“Hush.” Blue relaxes her lips and flutters her eyelashes. Her left hand joins the other and settles against her lap so that a makeshift wall forms. Bismuth sits down on one of her legs, careful not to apply too much pressure, and listens. “Not many know of these mutineers; Yellow and I have decided it’s best to keep the situation concealed, as many of our subjects would not react desirably in the instance of revolt. But you.” Blue, who’d been idly staring at a tapestry of the Four Diamonds, turns to her and points a narrow finger at Bismuth’s chest. “You’re a dissenter yourself, aren’t you?”  
“My Diamond, I-I assure you, I am loyal to-”  
“Yes, yes, yes, to the T, do calm down. Not rebellious in the traditional sense.” Blue traces her finger from underneath Bismuth’s chin to along her collarbone. “You’re not the type”, she muses as she pulls the finger away.   
This assessment draws a sigh from Bismuth. She swipes a hand over her forehead and brushes her hands over her pants. “Then what is it, exactly, that you require my services for?”  
Blue drops her hand against the chair’s armrest. “I need to ensure that my reign, my colleagues, and my people are safe. To do that, I need your help.”  
Bismuth blinks; she places a hand to her chest and scoffs. “Me? But-But I’m just a Bismuth. I’m nobody.”  
“Yes, but you’re a perceptive nobody. And I do like perception.”  
“O-Okay; what should I be perceiving?”  
Blue’s fingers tap against her armrest. She tilts her head to the side, her left hoop rising and catching the light of the lanterns of above; the light redirects to Bismuth’s eye, but she doesn’t dare move, far too concerned with the heavy set of her Diamond’s eye. “Pink Diamond is under the impression that we’ve nothing to worry about; that these Gems are merely seeking attention and will cease their unpleasantries when their needs have been met. But I don’t think so. I think we need to annihilate these Gems before they become a threat.”  
“Right. And that’s where I come in?”  
“Yes. I’m going to have you and a few other Gems such as yourself sent to Earth. From what Pink’s told us, the rebels are only resisting because they want to ‘protect the Earth and protect themselves’. Gems like you already think as these rebels do. The only remaining step is to live as they live; with this, you can understand what makes this speck of dirt so appealing.” She leans forward, reconstructing the double helix and the pellets; the pellet that had returned pauses, only to explode seconds later. Blue creates another pellet and places it along the strand, and the pellets resume their autonomy, undeterred by their sibling’s replacement. “Once you’ve discovered this trait, we can destroy it.” She turns back to Bismuth. “You do want to destroy it, don’t you?”  
Bismuth rubs her hand against the back of her neck. “O-Of course, my Diamond.”  
“Good. You’ll receive a pamphlet on Pink’s colony later this evening. Tomorrow.” She sits back in her chair and nods. “Tomorrow, you leave for Earth.”


	3. Warping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earth is not what she expected.

There isn’t much to pack. In fact, there’s hardly anything to pack. As a low caste Gem, Bismuth hasn’t the luxury of possessing many items. It’s a fact that becomes all the more prominent as she takes inventory after receiving further instruction from Blue’s Pearl: excluding the Reforming Chamber at the center of the room and the toolkit resting against said Chamber, Bismuth’s room is entirely bare. Leaving is strange because on the one hand, as one of the few things that she can call her own, perhaps she feel beckoned by a faint tendril of nostalgia. But on the other hand, Bismuth was never meant to develop such an attachment in the first place.   
Before she can further contemplate the matter, an Agate rushes past her room and falls in line with the several other Gems chosen for the Earth assignment. She takes note of the pensive Bismuth lingering outside her room and scowls; she grabs Bismuth by the arm and gives her a rough shove.  
“We haven’t got all day”, the other Bismuth huffs, turning to face the front.   
Bismuth acquiesces; she tightens her grip on her toolkit and steps behind the Agate. At the very front of the line, Beryl is watching the scene with conflicted eyes. Bismuth reassures her with a thin smile and a gentle wave, then watches as Beryl passes through the Gates of Inspection and disappears into the warbling Warp Pad. By the time Bismuth reaches her spot, the uneasiness in her chest has lessened considerably; she passes through the Gates with little trouble and soon finds herself standing on the Warp Pad.  
And it’s strange, warping. It’s like the light molecules composing her projection have scattered throughout the galaxy, only to be regathered and directed to one of the many beams dissecting the universe. When she’s herself again, Bismuth gasps and fails, taken off guard by her sudden weightlessness. She stretches her limbs out, creating a trembling T, and forces herself to calm her breathing; her eyes lock onto the wide expanse of white to the right of her and the abyss of darkness to the left of her. The white is frequently interrupted by bright purples and pinks, and the black is spotted with brief whites.   
Stars, Bismuth realizes, rolling onto her stomach to swim closer to the edge of the warp beam. Those are stars.   
Why has she never seen stars before?  
Her fingers slip through the beam, and she shivers at the brisk cold creeping over them, but she doesn’t relent. Because the stars are closer to her now than they’ve ever been and they’re even more beautiful than she could have imagined.  
But it only lasts for a minute, and, soon enough, all the lovely colors have disappeared, and gravity’s taken possession of her once more. She tumbles through the air and crashes to the soft cushioning of the vegetation beneath her. Bismuth groans, places a hand beneath her, and looks up. A Topaz, face cold and unmoving, stands above her; she takes one look at Bismuth, then turns away, attention now captured by the awestruck group of Gems crowding the towering skyscraper before them.  
“Welcome to Earth”, the Topaz calls over her shoulder before addressing the group.  
. . .  
Life is strange.  
Not life in the sense of experiences but life in the sense of birth, of growth, of death. Upon her first night on Earth, Bismuth is immensely aware of the fact that there is more to the universe beside herself. The thought itself isn’t revolutionary. She’s a Gem, and it’s been in ingrained in her that the only purpose in her life is to serve others.   
But as she observes an entirely new creature break through a chrysalis, Bismuth can only see beauty in the fact; she can only see how the insect flutters its wings before leaping into the air, intent on taking on the world in a way that she nor anyone else will never understand. A few days later, it will die, a lonely carcass amidst the rustling grass and ever growing trees. And Bismuth will take its corpse in her hands and feel envy course through her because that tiny little creature will have lived more in its six day life than she has in the course of a millennia.  
She has a mission: destroy the heart of the rebels; to do so, she has to understand them, to live as they have. And she has. And she understands.  
But only because she can’t go all the way.  
Bismuth studies the Earth. She studies its flora and its fauna and its people and its weather patterns. But there’s no been interaction. She’s always watched from a distance, and, from a distance, she wants. And she sees how much she misses out on in such a short amount of time. The Earth is always moving, always changing, and so is everything it contains. It seems unfairly cruel that Bismuth should be the exception.   
Not that she would dare suggest her discontent. Because wouldn’t that be something? A lowly Bismuth rebelling on Earth, the very colony she’d been assigned to help douse the flames of revolt. Shattering? It’d be a merciful act compared to the other forms of punishments the Diamond could surely deliver. Keeping her feelings concealed is a matter of survival, both physically and psychologically. It’s the only way to remain active and sane because, otherwise, she’d go mad with all the “what if”’s and “could I?”’s drifting through her mind throughout the day.  
So she remains quiet, and she sticks to her job: observation for the first twelve hours of the day and construction for the remaining twelve. Life is so close and yet so far, and it aches. Bismuth would resign her post, but that’s never been a possibility. No one has ever said no to a Diamond because as dreary and taxing as life can be sometimes, the alternative yields just as little promise.


	4. Rebel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bismuth's falls deeper into her discontent and meets someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! So heads up, the timeline's a bit fucked up, and there's another character in here that's canon. My description of her's a bit weird so just a head's up.

It makes sense that Earth would be the colony for Pink to weasel out of the Big Three. Of all the Diamonds, she’s the most inquisitive, the most likely to develop a passion for something seemingly mundane. As Bismuth begins to investigate the planet in the guise of constructing monuments, she finds Earth to be bustling with life and color and change. There’s a lot of change, and it occurs far too often for Bismuth’s liking.   
“We’re not supposed to like it”, Beryl points out, watching as Bismuth hammers an iron rod against an anvil.   
“I know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t.” Bismuth lifts the rod to scrutinize it. “Just when I think I get used to this place, BAM, ice starts falling from the sky. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”  
“Ignore it and finish your forging. And it’s not like it’ll last. Before you know it, the ice’ll turn into water, and you won’t even remember it.”  
“Beryl, that’s exactly my point.” Bismuth thrusts the searing rod into the circular pot jutting out from the wall, her breathing coming out in frustrated huffs as steam rises around them.   
Beryl watches with an arched eyebrow; she sidesteps her as Bismuth turns to rumble through the far too small desk in the left hand corner of the room and rears back. “What’s your problem?”  
Bismuth snatches a tablet from her desk, slamming the drawer shut. Her fingers scroll for several moments, then pause, skittering over the screen in an intricate yet heated dance. “My problem”, she seethes, voice thick and terse. “Is that the Diamonds have trusted us to do something big, something important, and yet we’re doing the same shit we were doing on Homeworld!” The tablet shatters in her grip, and she hurls it against the floor; shards of glass hop about the ground, scattering between the both of them; a few land on Beryl’s feet, but she’s too startled by the frantic hands taking hold of her shoulders to register their presence.  
“Doesn’t it bother you”, Bismuth is saying, eyes wide with desperation. “That we’ve left home, left our Diamonds, but are still living by the same rules? I know Pink’s still a Diamond but fuck.” She gives Beryl a jarring shake and groans. “Things were supposed to be different here. Even if it was only for a little while, but, B, they were supposed to be different. And they aren’t.”  
For a moment, Beryl can only stare. She stares with a confusion so overt, so genuine, that the little fear Bismuth feels quickly trickles to nothing. It’s an expression Bismuth has grown to treasure these last few decades because it’s the one that most closely resembles understanding, even if its owner can’t comprehend its friend’s delirium. “Sweetie.” Beryl wraps her fingers around Bismuth’s arm, holding firm when the latter attempts to pull away. “Of course they aren’t. We left home, but we’re still who we are; we’re still Gems. And Gems don’t get to live.”  
“Beryl. We are inhabiting a colony that’s more full of life than any other colony in the history of Diamond Imperialism. Shouldn’t we get the chance to live, too?”  
“No.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because we’re not even alive!” Beryl pulls her arm back, placing her hands on her hips. Her nose twitches, and she scowls, shaking her head in disappointment. “We were sent here to complete a mission, and that mission was to stop thoughts just like those.”  
“Well, why should we?” When this only incites a look of disgust from Beryl, Bismuth scoffs, wipes a hand over her face, and mutters, “They just wanna be free. What’s wrong with that?”  
Beryl lifts her hands in front of her, fingers connected to form a stiff tent. She closes her eyes, rocks back and forward on the balls of her feet, and exhales. Then, lids slowly pulling back over her eyes, she gives Bismuth a quick once-over, and sighs. “I thought this would be good for you”, she says. “Helping to stop these rebels before their influence spreads. But you’re even worse now than ever.”  
“Now, that?” Bismuth turns to the pot protruding from the wall; fists clenching at her sides, she stares at the broiling pot of water and stares. “That we can agree on.”  
Beryl grabs hold of her upper arm, eyes intent and a stormy shade of grey. She tugs, once, twice, and stands on her toes, her boney fingers digging into Bismuth’s arm. “Bis. Come on. Don’t fuck this up.”  
“This mission was fucked up the moment Blue made it seem like this would be anything different from Homeworld”, Bismuth returns, reaching into the nook in the wall; she weighs the hammer resting there in her hands. She scowls, head tilting backwards, and closes her eyes. “‘Only you lot can stop these traitors and restore the honor of the Diamonds and their loyal, loving subordinates’.” The hammer dangles in her hand; she turns back to Beryl and slicing it through the air. “But it’s just business as usual.”  
“So what are you gonna do?” Beryl’s fingers sink further into the impenetrable skin, and her words taken on a serrated edge. “Join their fucking cause? Plot? Rebel?”  
“I never said-”  
“Well, you might as well have!” Beryl hops in front of her, cheeks tinting grey; her shoulders rise and fall with each jagged breath, and her hands come before her, fingers splayed in uncertainty. “Do you want to be shattered”, she asks. Her voice cracks, and she shouts, kicking the wall beside Bismuth, before she takes her head into her hands. “They already suspect you, Bismuth.”  
“They suspect us all”, she retorts, twirling her hands beside her head. “It’s the reason why they chose us for this in the first place.”  
“Yeah. But that don’t mean you should give em a reason to recycle you.”  
Bismuth flicks her eyes to meet Beryl’s. Before, a statement like this would have left Bismuth speechless and embittered. A few decades back, she might have heeded the advice and taken the heat behind those words to gem. But this is now, and this is Beryl; Beryl, who stands at half her height but nonetheless manages to fill up the room. Beryl, who represses her spirit when in Bismuth’s presence to keep attention off the latter. Beryl, who’s staring up at her with eyes so struck with fear that it almost renders Bismuth weak.   
And regardless of what she preaches, Bismuth knows that Beryl cares.  
She tugs Bismuth closer once more and closes her eyes. “Please”, she pleads, forehead pressing into Bismuth’s stomach. “Please, don’t do anything reckless.”  
“Beryl.”  
“Please!” Her eyes fly open, and she glares, eyes wet with yet to shed tears. “Protect yourself.”  
Heat flares in Bismuth’s chest. Protect, protect, protect. Every grain in her being has been designed to protect, with the subject being her Diamonds: protect them from unconquered planets through the construction of containment facilities; protect them from boredom by building arenas for her kind to butcher themselves in; protect them from petty squabbles by designing torture devices for uncooperative colonies. Broken down, it’s nothing but static and nonsense because no one is really being protected. Through each act, the Diamonds’ egos are stroked and the Gems and other species are further oppressed, but no one’s really safe. Everyone’s on edge, waiting for the first big something, and there’s no telling who’ll be lost when the first shot rings out.  
“I’ll try”, Bismuth eventually cedes, wrapping an arm around Beryl’s back. She leans her chin into the mossy head of hair and sighs. “But I ain’t gonna be happy about it.”  
Beryl sighs as well, tangling their fingers at their sides. “You’re such a fucking idiot.”  
“And you’re a raging bitch.”  
“I know.”  
Soon after, Beryl leaves, wrenching a promise from Bismuth that she’ll keep sight of the mission. Bismuth swears to it, arms forming a stark diamond against her chest, and sees the smaller Gem out.  
Neither mentions the blatant lie that this is, but it’s still too comforting for either to comment on it.   
. . .  
Bismuth first sees the rebels during an unsanctioned leave from work.   
Her chosen place of respite was a cliff adorned by budding lilies and daisies. She hadn’t strayed too far from her forge, but it was enough distance that she felt comfortable enough to lounge and simply stare at the clouds touching the bottoms of her feet. The sky was a powdery blue with flecks of orange and pink scattered throughout. It was the same sky Bismuth had always seen from down below, but it seemed different from this height; there was something empowering about the proximity, like she was capable of reaching out and pulling the blue blanket from beyond saving it for her own eyes.   
All at once, she can’t help but reaching out, fingers flexing out, to press her hand against the sky. Understandably, nothing happens. But it feels so right to be able to test something to her own curiosity rather than someone’s demands. It feels good to drop the facade and admit that, yes, she does exist outside of being a tool for her Diamond.   
It feels nice to be alive.  
Bismuth curls her fingers around a patch of grass around her and sighs. When she lifts her hand and opens her palms, the wind picks up the thin strands and tosses them over the cliff to parts unknown. They disappear with relative ease, and, soon, Bismuth finds herself enraptured by the rays of sun dancing against the stream that borders their research center. She’s mimicking crushing said center between her fingers when something snaps from behind her.  
Bismuth hops to her feet and squares back her shoulders; she watches as a multicolored Gem falls from an oak tree and squeals, drawing back her own shoulders as a pair of gauntlets surround her fists.   
“All-All right now”, the other Gem begins. “We don’t want to hurt you. We-We’re just trying to get back to our friends.”  
“Okay.” Bismuth gestures her palms towards her and lifts her eyebrows. “I won’t stop you-yall.” Her eyes dart to the golden stars sitting atop her gauntlets. The tension in Bismuth’s shoulders dissipitates, and her expression softens. “Oh”, she says. “You...You’re one of them aren’t you?”  
The Gem straightens their arms, and their gauntlets hum. “Just stay away from us. We don’t mean you any harm.”  
“Look, I’m not looking to hassle y’all”, Bismuth explains, marvelling at the display of weaponry. “I just came up here for a little time off; I didn’t know this cliff was taken.” When the other Gem doesn’t relent in their stance, she exhales and brushes a few locks of her hair over her shoulder. She offers the frazzled Gem a gentle smile, gulps, and says, “My name is Bismuth.”  
The other Gem stares, unyielding in their posture, before blinking rapidly and allowing their arms to fall near their sides. A flash of light engulfs them, and their gauntlets turn back into hands; they give Bismuth a brief scrutinization, then return the smile with one of their own. “I’m Garnet.”  
“Garnet.” Bismuth takes a hesitant step forward and shakes her head. “I’ve never met a Garnet before. At least, not one that wasn’t a singular anyway.”  
A blue blush rises to their cheeks, and they duck their head. “Well, I am one of a kind. Literally.”  
“Gosh, I’m sorry, that-that was weird, wasn’t it?”  
“A little bit.”  
“Sorry. Uh, again.” Bismuth kicks her foot against the ground, watching the resulting cloud of dust that rises from the earth; she clears her throat and says, “I’m a decent person. I’m just a bit of a dumbass sometimes.”  
Garnet laughs, sheathing their smile behind a hand. “Well”, they begins between chuckle. “I thought spying on someone when I’m supposed to be in hiding was a good idea, so I think the dumbass is pretty evenly spread.” They then step forward and tilt their head to the side. “I’ve never known a Gem to take time off. Did you...win the free time or something?”  
“No, I kinda just took it.” Bismuth scratches the back of her head and turns to look at the research center; it’s at the center of this particular stretch of land. Within a few months, though, the center will expand with several facilities and consume the greenery surrounding it. She’s seen it happen before, has even constructed facilities of the sort. But something about this land, about this planet, makes this fact all the more disturbing. Sighing, Bismuth tosses her legs over the cliff and stares ahead, hands once again pulling at the grass.   
“You seem troubled”, Garnet notes, crouching beside her. “Is something the matter?”  
“No. Why do you ask?”  
“Well, you’ve taken off from work without permission. That alone is grounds for a shattering, depending on the Diamond. Not many Gems would take the risk. But you have.”  
Bismuth kicks her feet back and forward; her lips pursed, she spares Garnet a quick glance, then turns back to the landscape. “Yeah. But you’re a rebel. I’m sure you know the spiel.”  
Garnet smiles. “I do. But I don’t know yours.”  
“And you want to know?”  
“Color me curious. But yeah.”  
“I’m no expert”, Bismuth says with half a smirk. “But I don’t thinking chatting up random Gems is the safest thing to do in your position.”  
“You’ve abandoned your Compound. You definitely aren’t an expert.”  
Bismuth chuckles and rolls her eyes. “You’re cool”, she admits, slapping Garnet on the ankle. Then, lowering her hands back to the ground, she takes a deep breath and bites her lip. “Being in that place, being a...a slave just…” She pulls a layer of soil from the earth and huffs, the whites of her eyes taking on a orange hue. “I just had to get away. Even if it was just for a minute, but I had to get away.”  
Garnet takes a seat beside her. They finger the grass beneath them and nod. “That’s how it was for us. Before.”  
“Did it get any better?”  
They beam. “Yes. In all the ways you can and can’t imagine. It’s so much better.” She places the heel of one foot into the ankle of their other and follows Bismuth’s line of sight. “It was scary at first, no doubt. But we were ourselves, and that was okay. We were allowed to be us, and people, other rebels, didn’t really care because they were just as non-traditional as us. And it was all just amazing. Terrifying, and life-threatening if we’re ever discovered, but amazing. Utterly and irrevocably amazing.”   
“So it’s worth it? The risk, the fear, the uncertainty?” She turns to Garnet, hands resting in the lap of her apron, and looks up at her. “Being free makes it all worth it?”  
Garnet nods. They hold her eye for a moment before proceeding to ask, “Are you...considering...withdrawing from the Courts?”  
“Yeah. No. I don’t know.” She drops her chin into the palm of her hand and eases her legs onto the cliff. They fold beneath her, and she leans closer to Garnet, eyeing her with an overt frustration. “I hate existing for someone else’s benefit”, Bismuth reveals. “But I don’t know how to do anything else. What else could I do?”  
“Live.”  
“Yeah, but I mean what would I do with that? Life, I mean.”  
“Well, no one said you had to know.” Garnet tugs at the frills of her skirt and smiles. “Rose says that’s one of the best things about Earth. That you don’t have to know. That you can just fuck about until you find what suits you. And we have to agree.” Their hands meet against their stomach, and she breaths, eyelids falling over their eyes in bliss. “If there was ever a planet for us to develop on, I do believe Earth to be the best.” Their eyes open once more, and they rise to their feet. “It’s your life ultimately, but we see no reason why the same wouldn’t apply to you.”  
Bismuth blinks. Her hands bawl the leather fabric of her smock, and she shakes her head. “No way”, she scoffs. “I mean, I’m just me.”  
“And we’re just us”, Garnet persists, reaching out to lay a hand across Bismuth’s knee.   
“Come on, you know what I mean. I’ve read about you guys. The Pearl fighting to be something other than an object. The Rose Quartz fighting to save this planet and give Gems a purpose. And you guys, fighting for each other, for love.” Bismuth tosses her arms up in exasperation. “I just wanna be free to sit on my ass all day and stare at clouds.”  
Garnet chuckles and raises their eyebrows. “Is that such an issue? If it means you possess free will, then go for it.”  
“‘Go for it’? You mean rebel?”  
“Well, yes. What are your other options?” When Bismuth doesn’t respond, Garnet gives her knee a gentle pat and stands. “It was nice speaking to you. But I have to leave. My friends will start to worry.”   
“Right.” Bismuth extends a hand, letting out a surprised, “Oh!” when Garnet surges forward and pulls her into a crushing embrace. “This is...what is this? What are you doing?”  
Garnet chuckles and pulls away to smile at her. “The humans call it a hug”, she explains, smile widening when Bismuth sinks into the embrace with calculated apprehension. “It’s like a handshake but better.”  
“It’s weird.”  
“It’s a good weird.”  
Dark grey peppers her cheeks, and her shoulders draw up towards her ears. “Yeah.” Just as she’s wrapping her arms around Garnet’s waist, a shrill bell pierces the air and startles the two from their hug. Garnet stumbles backward, summoning their gauntlets once more, and stares over Bismuth’s shoulder. Bismuth turns, muscles turning taut at the sight of an approaching Red Eye. It casts a beam at her, scanning the left side of her body, before Garnet tackles her to the ground and sends them tumbling down the mountainside. They crash into a thorny thicket of bushes, but they stay down, chins brushing against the earth until the hovering craft dips over the cliff. Even then, they remain hidden, waiting until the mechanical shrieking dims to a faint hum. When the two finally feel safe, they crawl through the bushes and stand, heads darting to the east and west.  
“It’s gone”, Bismuth assures, scraping aged leaves and soil from her thighs. “I think we’re safe.”  
Garnet frowns. “It scanned you. Maybe not all of you, but it was enough to get most of your ID.”  
“No way. They didn’t even know that I’d be coming here.”  
“Doesn’t matter. They knew you didn’t clock in, and there aren’t many places to hide in in this section.” They flick their eyes away from Bismuth to the sky, the skin above their eyes concave. “If you had to guess”, they prompt, attention still on the sky. “What’s the Diamonds’ perception of your loyalty?”  
Bismuth pulls her lower lip between her teeth; warmth crawls up the back of her neck, slithery like a dancing snake, and she makes a so-so gesture with her hand. “Uh, on the fence. I guess. It’s actually why I was sent here; said they needed someone with ‘rebel-like qualities” on the case to understand why you guys like Earth so much”, she explains, rocking on her heels.   
“It’s logical, we’ll give em that”, Garnet murmurs, fingers pinching their chin. They turn back to Bismuth and sigh. “They already know your true nature. With that scan, there’s little chance of you escaping this alive.”  
“And you know this how?”  
“Call it a gift our ours.” They reach forward and take hold of her shoulders. “We’re afraid staying in the Courts is no longer an option.”  
“So what, I’m just supposed to join the cause now?”  
“If you want to live, then yes. You won’t survive on your own, not with Pink colonizing this place. We’ve been avoiding their Red Eyes for nearly a century now. We know how to do this.”  
Bismuth scowls. She stretches her hands out beside her, eyes wide with defeat, and admonishes, “So I’m just supposed to tuck tail and hide in caves and trees for the rest of my life?”  
Garnet shakes their head. “We’re not just hiding”, they correct. “And either way, it’s better than going back and hoping they don’t shatter you.”  
“This is crazy.” Bismuth kicks at the shrub of periwinkles beside her. It ruffles from the attack, slender stems bending and snapping from the attack; several of the purple heads glide to the earth, and Bismuth stares, chest heaving as the life fades from the flowers. “I can’t just leave”, she says, eyes lifting to meet Garnet’s.   
“Why not? You said yourself that you aren’t happy with the way you were living.”  
“For fuck’s sake, of course I’m not happy, but I wasn’t actually considering leaving. I’m not that type of Gem!” She places a hand against her chest and shakes her head. “It’s amazing that you guys and your friends got out, but I’m-I’m not like you. I was terrified to come out here today, and y’all think I could help with a revolution? Are you serious?” She shifts her attention to her gauntlets and huffs. “I don’t even have a weapon. How in the galaxy do you expect me to contribute anything?”  
Garnet stares at her. They shrug, shift their gauntlets back into hands, and sigh. “Everyone’s good at something. I won’t tell you where to go from here but, please, do consider us.” All three of their eyes blink, and they turn around, walking back to the tree that they had fallen from. Before darting from their tree to the next, they turn back to Bismuth, smile, and wave. “It was nice meeting you.” And then she’s gone.  
And Bismuth has a job to return to.


	5. Turn the Page, Begin a New Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bismuth struggles to evade Homeworld's forces; along the way, she gains the help of an unexpected friend and eventually finds her new role in life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! So this is the final chapter before the rebellion kicks off from Bismuth's perspective. It's a bit longer than usual, and a lot kind of happens. So strap yourselves in and kick up your feet (ugh, that's lame). There's a lot going on for Bis today.

The Compound’s on high alert by the time Bismuth scrambles down the mountainside. The emergency lights have been lit, and there’s an alarm blaring throughout the growing community. Each entrance into the Compound is guarded by a pair of working-class Gems; two Amethysts stand outside her forge, one with a baton and one with a bolas. She’s never met them before. And even if she had, the chances of them letting a rogue Bismuth back into the Compound are relatively low.   
“I am so screwed”, she whispers, wiping a hand over her face. As she says this, a carriage of cobblestone floats down the road and settles a few paces behind her. Struggling to keep her yelp contained, Bismuth rises to her feet and dashes behind a tree, watching as the carriage driver hops down from her seat.  
It’s a Ruby.   
“How am I supposed to know”, she’s saying to the tablet in her hands. “I just got back from escorting a Pearl to her Emerald.” She tosses one hand up and growls, jabbing a finger into the screen. “Well, why’s it gotta be me!?”  
Bismuth winces and scurries across the path; the Ruby is too preoccupied with her call to notice the former’s lack of stealth, but Bismuth tries her best to silence her steps anyway. By the time she’s stumbled through the trimmed forest, the Ruby has slammed her tablet against the ground and begun stomping on it. The Topazes standing on guard at the TeleCommunications Hub take note of the act; the first one, colloquially known as High Brow, narrows her eyes and digs her spear into the dirt.   
“Simmer’s having a fit again”, she murmurs.  
“Uh, yeah, I can see.”  
Bismuth crouches behind a tree and listens, fingernails digging deep into the birch wood.   
“Well, are we gonna go stop her or what? I heard she got so worked up last time that she set her carriage on fire. And the Quartz that just so happened to be with her was poofed cause the hothead torched the materials they were transporting.”  
The other Topaz, Spot, pulls a face. She turns to High Brow, hands placed on her hips, and scowls. “We aren’t with her”, she argues, gesturing to the half-mile between them. “How can they put that on us?”  
“We’re close enough”, High Brow says as she abandons her post. “And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been poofed enough times this term.”  
Spot scoffs and starts after her. “We can’t just leave”, she protests. “What if that Bismuth comes back? Do you have any idea how much trouble we could get into for allowing a rebel into the TeleCommunications Hub?”   
“Please. Even for a Bismuth, that’s just stupid. She knows what happens to rebels; there’s no way she’d take the risk.” When Spot falters in her pace, High Brow turns around and gestures to the smoking Ruby ahead of them. “I’m placing my bet on her; you know how Rubies are. Imma need all the help I can get.”  
“Fine.” Spot sighs and jogs to meet her. “But if this comes back-”  
“It won’t. And if it does, we can just blame it on Simmer.”  
“Fair enough.”  
Bismuth rolls her eyes; when she’s certain the Topazes are far enough down the path, she hops from behind her tree and runs to the Hub’s entrance. Upon placing her hand against the palm pad beside the door, the pad glows red; a message emits from the pad, displaying “Deviant Signature Detected”. Chains descend upon the door, and a siren blares from the satellite dish sitting at the top of the Hub. “Intruder, intruder, intruder!”  
“Can’t catch a fucking break”, Bismuth curses as she retreats into the forest once more. The Topazes are rushing back towards the Hub, both holding a hand of the aflame Ruby between them. But Bismuth’s already deep into the forest by then, slapping back tree branches and stumbling over enlarged tree roots every other second. The surrounding sirens and alarms make her Gem quiver in her chest, and she pants, her head darting to and fro at even the faintest rustling of leaves. Red Eyes are swooping overhead, so Bismuth takes to running in a zig-zag formation, leaping over boulders and dislodged trees to evade their light beams. But even with the deception, she is but one Gem, and there are at least fifteen of the aircrafts tailing her.   
A Red Eye emerges several paces ahead of her; when it begins to approach her, Bismuth gulps and ducks to the side. She watches as the beam takes a moment to scan the spot where she’d been standing. It hovers for a moment before the soil levitates and is gulped into one of the aircraft’s compartments. Then, without further examining the area, it revolves around a nearby tree for a few seconds before zooming back to the Compound. Bismuth looks around her and notices the other Red Eyes doing the same and sighs. She rises from the shrub she’d dived into and brushes some twigs off her pants. As she’s inspecting the sky, a “psst!” emerges from a tree to her right.  
“Fuck, not again.” Bismuth prepares to break into a sprint, only to stop as Beryl leaps from the tree and lands in front of her. Bismuth blinks, then smiles, a deep chuckle rising from her core. “Rylie”, she greets in a whisper as she steps forward, arms open for a hug. “What are you doing here? Ow!”  
Beryl swats Bismuth’s hands with her wand and growls, jutting it against Bismuth’s nose. “Saving your ass”, Beryl hisses as she gestures overhead. “Do you have any idea what’s going on in the Compound?”  
“Uh, no?” Bismuth gestures to her dirty, tattered clothing and stares at her pointedly. “I’ve been trying to sneak in for hours, but, every time I get close, I either get spotted or something screws it up. Speaking of, Simmer’s apparently on the rampage again and-”  
“Would you shut up?” Beryl grabs Bismuth by the wrist and begins guiding her through the forest. “I cannot believe you left your forge during working hours”, she chides, stepping over a puddle of rain. “Especially after all the times I’ve told you not to.”  
“Yeah, but-”  
“And then you tried to come back!” Beryl tosses her arms up and scoffs. “You know how the system is. The moment you step out of bounds, it locks you out and classifies you as a threat. What the stars did you think was gonna happen?”  
“Well, I was hoping for a better reaction than this, but I can’t say I’m surprised”, Bismuth grunts as they come to a clearing in the woods. A convoy of carriages floats by, so they duck into the high grass, crawling along the ground as the convoy comes to a halt. “And I wasn’t thinking”, she whispers. “I just...I just had to get away. I wasn’t really worried about the system. Til, you know, it actually became a problem.”   
“You know, for some reason, I was actually thinking you’d put these fantasies behind you”, Beryl gripes. “But no, you just had to run off and sniff the fucking roses; I had better faith in you not to be a total goose.”  
“Cork it, Rylie.”  
The ground breaks into a drained ravine. Bismuth and Beryl slide against the side, careful not to disturb too many rocks. When they reach the bottom, they look up, waiting until they hear the pulsing that signals the passing of the convoy.   
Beryl turns to Bismuth. She crosses her arms over her chest and stares. “Bis”, she eventually says. “Why?”  
Bismuth shrugs. She walks to the other side of the ravine and begins to scale its side. Looking down at Beryl, she lodges her elbow into the dirt and scratches the back of her neg. “I told you. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”  
“You were doing so well.” Beryl crawls up beside her and takes in a shaky breath. “You were helping find the rebels, you were getting your name out there as a builder. You were better.”  
“Better, maybe, but I still wasn’t happy. Doesn’t that matter?”  
“If it means you don’t have to be shattered, then yes!” She accepts the hand that Bismuth has extended, allowing herself to be pulled to the top of the ravine. The grass is up to their waist here, and they’re visible to the small stretch of road beside them. But they don’t duck and hide. They stand as they are, a rebel and a slave, and they watch one another, each as perplexed by the other’s resolution.   
“You’ll die”, Beryl says with a slashing motion. “And you won’t come back. Do you understand that?”  
“‘Course I do, I’m not stupid.”  
“Then why the fuck would you leave?”  
“The same reason you left!” A grey blush creeps up Bismuth’s neck, and her breathing takes an abrupt piercing. She takes her locks into her hands, brushes them back into place, and groans, turning her eyes back to Beryl. “You talk all this shit about Gems being emotionless drones only meant to serve the Diamonds. But that’s not me! And if you could pull your head out of your ass for just a fucking second, you’d see that that ain’t you either.”   
Beryl purses her lips and stalks closer to Bismuth. She jabs a finger into Bismuth’s stomach, glares, and huffs. “I am nothing like you.”  
Bismuth stares down at the finger; then, eyes raising to meet Beryl’s, she crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. “And yet here you are. Disregarding protocol and putting your ass on the line to keep me safe.” She pulls away so as to not tower over Beryl; Beryl inhales sharply and rears back, snatches her wand from her belt and points it at Bismuth.  
“We’re not here to talk about me”, Beryl replies; her wand shakes in her grip, but her stare and stance remain firm and unwavering. She takes a step back from Bismuth before proceeding to look over her shoulder. Behind them, the earth dips beneath the surrounding brush of poison ivy and breaks into yet another ravine. Without a word, she grabs Bismuth’s hand and guides her into the pit. “I volunteered to help track you down”, Beryl murmurs, tugging the ivy over an exposed section of the pit. “Our Diamonds said they needed a handful of us out in the field; they didn’t want to risk you joining the rebels.” She pauses, taking a moment to examine the makeshift ceiling, then turns to Bismuth. “You haven’t joined their ranks, right?”  
Bismuth scratches at a dirt stain on her shirt. She sits on the ground, presses her back to the wall, and laughs airily. “Ah. Well, I wouldn’t call ‘em ranks. There aren’t very many of them.”  
“Bismuth!”  
“Would you calm the fuck down? All right, I didn’t join anything. I just met one. And you know what?” She pulls one leg off the ground and drops an elbow against her knee. “They were a lot nicer than you.”  
Beryl’s face takes on a deeper shade of blue. She rolls down the side of the ravine, crosses the space between them, and taps her foot against the ground. “So what, they’re better than me? Is that it?”  
Bismuth raises a hand. “I didn’t say that.”  
“You’re gonna run off and be best friends and make trinkets for ‘em?”  
“Didn’t say that either.”  
“Oh, cause let me tell you.” She points to herself. “You never made me any trinkets! And I’ll be damned if those wenches get one before me.”  
“You know, for the Gem that’s so loyal to the Courts and their values, you’re acting like an irrational bitch.” When this prompts a scowl from Beryl, Bismuth smirks and rolls onto her side. “Look, it’s almost sundown. It’s gonna be easier for the Red Eyes to track me, and I’d rather not spend the night arguing with the one Gem that cared enough to come and find my ass. Can we just...talk?”  
“No.”  
“Bitch.”  
“Dumbass.”  
. . .  
“Rylie?”  
Beryl shifts; she turns over on her side and blinks up at Bismuth. Catching the uncharacteristically grave expression upon her friend’s face, Beryl presses her palms into the earth and pushes herself into a seated position. “Yeah?”  
Bismuth rubs her hands over her knees. She’s focused on the colony of ants climbing the side of the ravine; there’s a profound solemnity behind her eyes, and it lets Beryl know that they’re approaching perilous territory.   
“All these years, you’ve been telling me to keep my head down and to keep my mouth shut”, Bismuth says as she lifts a finger to the wall. An ant crawls onto the finger, and she hums, tilting it skyward. The ant falls onto her smock, but the colony continues onwards; it’s just one ant. She looks over to Beryl and considers her. “You always told me that it ain’t within a Gem’s power to change the nature of things.”  
Beryl nods, eyeing her suspiciously. “Yeah.”  
“But you’re helping me. You’ve gotta know that’s gonna really fuck up the system, right?”  
She hums. Turning so that her side faces Bismuth, she shoves her finger into the dirt and digs a small hole. She discovers a patch of green and tugs it from the earth, tossing it aside without a second glance, before she resumes her digging. “This would have never happened if you’d have just listened to me.”  
“Yeah, but I didn’t. And this is where we are now. And you can’t deny that that bullshit the Diamonds preach to us is just...well, it’s bullshit.” Bismuth crawls closer to Beryl. She tugs one knee underneath her and watches Beryl, raising an eyebrow in amusement. She reaches forward and removes Beryl’s hands from the hole, brushing the pile of dirt over the divot. “Beryl”, Bismuth says with a heaving sigh. “I’m sorry. I know you tried to keep me safe. I know you thought keeping me in the Courts would be best for me. But it wasn’t. Hey.” She grabs Beryl by the chin and stares at her. Eyes wide with intent, Bismuth inhales and drops her free hand on Beryl’s left shoulder. “Being this perfect, all-abiding Gem? It was killing me, Rylie. Everyday, it was killing me. It was only a matter of time before I purposefully did something to get myself on the Diamonds’ radar.”  
“Don’t say that.”  
“It’s true.” A gust of wind brushes past, ruffling the canopy of leaves and poison ivy. A tendril of air tickles Bismuth’s nose and rushes beneath her smock. She flattens it with her hand, then turns away, hands on her hips as she faces the side of the ravine. Behind her, Beryl’s placed a hand on her head to keep her billowing hair neat. On any other day, she’d be quick to rush to the nearest reflective surface to make it presentable once more. But on this day, there is only Bismuth, and only Bismuth has her full attention.   
“But it’s like I said”, Bismuth is saying. “It happened. And there’s no changing it.”  
Beryl shakes her head. “If you would just come back; we could figure something out, some way to explain all of this.”  
“They’d never believe me. Even if they did, it’s more important for them to make an example of what happens to suspected rebels than showing their faith in them.” She rubs her hands over her forearms and sighs. “I’m better off on my own.”  
“They’re going to hunt you down.” Beryl walks over to her and glares, hands clenched at her sides. When Bismuth doesn’t meet her eye, her glare burns hot, and tears threaten to spill over her eyes. “And when they find you, cause you know they will, they’re gonna string you up by your gem and make all of us watch.” She tugs on Bismuth’s smock and chokes. “They’re gonna make me watch.”  
Bismuth turns to her. Heat surges throughout her being, and something cuts off her sense of touch, afflicting her body with a numbing sensation . She places her fingers against Beryl’s cheeks. And even if she can’t feel the smooth surface beneath her fingertips, it’s relieving to see the smaller Gem comforted by the gesture. She pulls Beryl close to her and breathes, content with standing with this conflicted creature in her arms.  
“I don’t want you to die”, Beryl whispers, balling Bismuth’s apron in her hands. She looks up at Bismuth and gives her a half-hearted punch. “I want you to come back so we can talk shit about all these stuffy bitches.”  
Bismuth smiles. “Rylie. Come on.”  
“I know, I know, it can’t happen.” She sighs and wraps her arms around herself. Her lips curve upwards, and she pushes a white tendril of hair out of her eyes. Looking up at Bismuth, Beryl shrugs and says, “You could’ve gone along with it, though.”  
Bismuth smiles. “Would it have made you feel better?”  
“Probably not.” She peers up through the leaves and brush, squinting at the specks of early sunlight peeking through. “Sun’s coming up. We’d better get moving if we wanna put some distance between us and the Compound.” She grunts, jumping onto a tree root protruding from the wall of earth. As she’s pulling herself up, she looks down and finds Bismuth hasn’t moved from the ravine. “Come on, move your ass. You know dawn’s the best time to avoid Gem tech. We can’t waste time.”  
Bismuth walks towards her. She juts her hip out, scoffs, and stares up at Beryl. “‘We’?’”  
Beryl bites her lip. She kicks in the roof, then looks away, lowering her hand as she stares at a pillbug rolling along the ground. “Well, not ‘we’ we. But Imma help you, uh, you know, find those friends of yours. The rebels. I’m not expected back into the Compound for another few days, so I just figured, you know, it wouldn’t hurt to help you out. Just for a little while, though.” Bismuth accepts her hand, digs her heels into the earth, and falls beside Beryl.   
“So what you’re saying is-”  
“I’m saying I’m doing the Courts a favor by escorting a potential rebel away from Pink Diamond’s first colony.” Beryl turns her nose up at Bismuth; she waves a hand at Bismuth, then turns to march away, ignoring the faces Bismuth is making at her.   
“You love me”, Bismuth sneers, lifting Beryl off her feet. She puckers her lips and closes her eyes, drawing closer to Beryl. When Beryl squeals and swats her nose, Bismuth drops her and laughs, her hand placed on her stomach. “You’re all right when you ain’t being a do right, Rylie.”  
Beryl glares up at her. She lifts her middle finger before turning away; her hair frizzes up, and she groans, hopping to her feet and pushing through the thigh-high grass. “You’ve got about as much class as a lump of coal, Bis.”  
“And that’s why you love me.”  
The hints of a smile creeps onto Beryl’s face. She bumps her shoulder into Bismuth’s forearm; her attention’s drawn to the sun rising over the treetops, spilling yellow onto the land like a one-dimensional fog. But Bismuth is beside her, cool and solid and grounding, and the approaching landscape quickly loses its glamor. “Yeah, maybe.”  
The grass silences their footsteps; after centuries of walking along crumbly soil and metal floors, it’s strange not to be able to hear herself.   
Strange, Bismuth finds herself thinking. But nice.  
“So what happens next”, Beryl asks when they reach the edge of the forest. She still won’t meet Bismuth’s eyes, but her ears are standing at attention, pointed and eager for the words that will stumble out of Bismuth’s mouth.   
“Find Garnet and her crew”, Bismuth says with a small smile. “She told me that if I ever wanted out of the Courts, I’d be welcome amongst them. All things considered, I think it’s time I go looking for ‘em.”  
Beryl nods. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her wand. Turning it over in her hands, she runs her fingers along its length and sticks her tongue between her lips. She looks up at Bismuth, eyes heavy with uncertainty, and holds the wand out between them. “I heard the rebels-er your friends-got their hands on some tech in the chaos from yesterday. Might help if you have some way of contacting them. That and these work for telecommunications. Any order the Diamonds or superiors give should come through here.” She places the wand into Bismuth’s hands, then takes a step back. She gives Bismuth a playful glare and says, “Don’t break it.”  
Bismuth chuckles, though she finds the sound getting stuck somewhere in her chest. She clears her throat and closes her fingers around the wand. She looks at Beryl. “Trust me. I won’t.”  
“And uh.” She sniffles. “Keep your head out of your ass. You’re gonna need to have all yours wits in working order to survive.”  
“I will.” Bismuth drags her thumb over the diamond protruding from the wand. She hums, pulls two locks behind each ear, and scratches the underside of her chin. “You know”, she muses, chancing a glance at Beryl. “You could come with me.”  
“Mm. That’s an idea.” Beryl slams her foot against a rock, watching as it jumps through the grass and from their sight.   
“Yeah?”  
“But it’s not a very good one.” She turns to Bismuth, who’s begun to frown, and shrugs. “Come on. I mean, fine, maybe I’m not the model of Gem that I’m supposed to be. But I’m no rebel. I’m not like you. I kind of like the order of everything.” She brushes her fingers over the twin yellow diamonds sewn over her shoulders. “I’m of a better use where I am now.”  
Bismuth glowers, sidestepping the corpse of an antelope. “You don’t need to have a use.”  
“I kinda do. I was made to do something. And, you know, it’s nice that you were able to break away from that. But I can’t. It’s a shitty life, but it’s my life. And I can’t just abandon it. It’s all I am.” Beryl reaches forward and pulls Bismuth in for a hug. After a moment of heated scowling, Bismuth sighs and returns the hug, resting her chin against Beryl’s head.   
“Imma miss you”, Bismuth says when she pulls away. “If you can...give me a call.”  
Beryl smiles. “Definitely. And who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to sneak off sometime. With all these rebels popping up, I get the feeling Security’s ain’t gonna be what it used to be.”  
“Yeah. Well, here’s to hoping, right?”  
She opens her mouth to say something, only to jerk still and fall silent. A silvery liquid bubbles past her lips, and her eyes roll back into her head. Beryl stumbles forward, hands grasping for something, before tumbling to the ground. Bismuth rushes forward and takes her in her arms, turning her onto her back. At the sight of the arrow piercing the cyan blue gem at Beryl’s mid back, Bismuth whimpers and pulls her lip between her teeth. She turns Beryl back over and stares, slapping her face gently.  
“Rylie”, she whispers, tossing Beryl’s arm over her shoulder. “Come on. Come on, wake the fuck up.” An arrow swizzes through the air and slices her across the cheek. She shakes her head, spares the wound a brief glance, then turns back to Beryl. “Beryl, this isn’t funny.” She looks up, sees the approaching Cruiser, and whines. Bismuth gives Beryl a rough shake, then shouts, “Come on! We gotta go!”   
The Cruiser fires another arrow; this one lodges into Bismuth’s shoulder and sends her sprawling backwards. When the shock dims, she grunts, snatches the arrow out, and tosses it to the side. She then retrieves Beryl’s body from the ground and runs, ducking underneath and swerving past each arrow that tracks her. The Cruiser has just caught her in a yellow beam, chirping to signal the completed scan, when Bismuth disappears into the cover the forest provides.   
She ducks behind a boulder; placing Beryl on her side, Bismuth drags a finger over the arrow jutting from her gem. She gags, presses her forearm against her mouth, and forces a breath to expel from her chest. Laying against the boulder’s crumbly surface with her eyes closed and lips loose, it’d be easy to think Beryl’s asleep. Rays from the sun have crept over her eyelids, and droplets of dew from the high grass have clung to her cheeks. The sight would be almost ethereal if not for the trail of silver dribbling from her lips.   
“You are not quitting on me.” Bismuth yanks the arrow from Beryl’s Gem. When this fails to draw a response from her, she growls and snatches her by the straps of her overalls. Bismuth pulls her close to her face and clenches her fist, her cheeks a dark grey as she peels Beryl’s eyes open.   
“You ain’t supposed to die”, she hisses. “It ain’t supposed to go like this.” She presses Beryl’s face into her neck and sniffles, eyes clenched shut against the silver tears threatening to escape. “Please. Please, please, please, wake up.” She grabs her smock and drags it over Beryl’s lips, only to quickly draw back her fingers when Beryl suddenly poofs. Her Gem shatters into several pieces and falls into Bismuth’s lap, pricking the skin there.   
Bismuth scoops the shards into her hands. She can’t help but notice how small they are; even after brushing them into a pile, they only manage to cover the palm of her left hand. It’s strange that a Gem like Beryl can be reduced to such a minuscule state.   
“Bismuth.”  
Bismuth tucks the shards into her smock’s pocket; she punches the boulder she’d placed Beryl on, then pauses before reaching for the largest resulting piece of stone. Just as she’s turned to stab the speaker, something slaps the stone from her hands and grabs her by the shoulders.  
“Get your fucking hands off of me, you fucking-”  
“Bismuth! Calm down, it’s us!” Garnet holds their hands out and deactivates their gauntlets. They remove their hands from Bismuth’s shoulders, take a step back, and tilt their head. “It’s Garnet. We’re not going to hurt you.” Their eyes dart to the metallic substance staining Bismuth’s apron and hands. “Are you hurt?”  
“What? No. No, not me. I…” She rubs a hand over her pocket and closes her eyes. “My friend.”  
Garnet’s eyes soften. Their left eye twitches, the blue of the iris becoming more prominent, and a hand rises to their chest. Their lips move as if to say something, but nothing comes out; rendered speechless, Garnet looks down at Bismuth.   
Bismuth shakes her head. She grips her forearms tautly and turns her back to Garnet, scanning the trees for any sign of the Cruiser. “She just wanted to help”, she says as she retrieves Beryl’s wand from her pocket. She lowers to her knees and stares ahead, her eyes dull and empty. “She was helping me get away from the Compound. She was just about to leave. She wasn’t even supposed to be here.”  
Garnet steps forward once more. They join Bismuth on the ground and set a tentative hand on her back. “It’s not your fault”, Garnet offers with a soft voice. “She knew the risks, and she was willing to take them.”  
“I know.” She turns to Garnet. “She still shouldn’t have been here, though. And if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been.”  
“Bismuth-”  
“And those fuckers wouldn’t have had the chance to shove a fucking arrow in her back.” Her fingers clench around the wand, and her cheeks flush a dark grey. Her other hand drops to the earth; she gathers a heap of soil between her fingers before squeezing them into a fist.   
“Bismuth”, Garnet pleads. They place a hand over the fist and urge Bismuth to look at her. When she meets their eyes, they sigh, rub their ring finger over Bismuth’s middle finger, and bite their lip. “We think you should come with us.”  
“I can manage on my own.”  
“You’re not in your right mind. You’re hurt, and you’re about to enter a world that values you more dead than alive. You’d be better off with us.”  
Bismuth glares. “And what exactly would that entail? Hiding in trees, stealing Diamond tech, and hoping we never get found. That’s not a life for me.”  
Garnet raises their eyebrows. They rise to their feet and place their hands on their hips. “Maybe that’s what we were before”, they admit, extending a hand. “But things are changing. And hiding and scavenging isn’t going to cut it anymore.”  
Bismuth allows herself to be pulled to her feet. She wipes a trail of silver off her cheek with the back of her hand, then frowns at Garnet. She purses her lips, tightens her grip around Beryl’s wand, and narrows her eyes. “What does that mean?”  
“It means this ‘rebellion’ is going to get more physical.” Garnet shuffles their feet. “Now, we’ve been recruiting people for the past few months, but our numbers are still small. We aren’t sure how many would actually join us when we make the call. We’d appreciate the support.”  
“I ain’t no rebel”, Bismuth warns with a pointed look. “If I’m in this, I’m in this to find the bastards who shattered my friend. And to live without having to look over my shoulder. I ain’t doing this for no cause.”  
Garnet’s face hardens, but their stance yields strong. They nod and hold out their hand. “Very well. Like I said, we need all the help we can get. Regardless of motive.”  
“All right, then.” Bismuth raises the wand between her eyes and peers at it; it’s a dainty little instrument, which, she supposes, was a perfect fit for such a dainty Gem. It’s strange to hold something that belonged to someone who no longer exists. It’s strange to have loved Beryl so deeply that it made them both more than the tool they were designed to be. Should Bismuth ever be captured and have the opportunity to ask, would anyone remember her?   
Probably not.  
She drops the wand back into her pocket, wincing at the jingle it produces upon clinking against Beryl’s shards, and turns back to Garnet. “Yall taking me to these friends of yall’s or what?”


	6. Two Low Castes in a Pod

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose plays matchmaker, and Bismuth comes to know of the infamous Pearl everyone's been talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, Bismuth and Pearl's first meeting isn't anything like the ones we've seen in the show. Seriously; it's nothing like that. Okay, onto the show!

It comes as a jolt when Bismuth realizes she can use her shapeshifting as a weapon.   
Later on, of course, she’ll think back and be dumbfounded because being able to shift her arm in into cleavers and anvils and saws? Could be helpful in a battle.   
Then again, before, there had never been any thought for battle. The very idea of violence was grounds for a shattering. Besides, despite her stature, aggression had never been a trait a Bismuth’s. It always seemed to take people by surprise when they discovered her passivity and timid nature. Because, as the Diamonds and upper-crusts have long-since preached, size determines traits. So it only made sense for people to be so puzzled upon first meeting her; it made sense for them to not understand how a Bismuth can be so kind, so peaceful, for a Gem of her type.  
But again, that was before. And before, there had only been the Diamonds, cruel and selfish and uncaring in their pursuit of colonization. Now, there still are the Diamonds, but there are also Gems, rebels with and without a cause. And all else that that implies.  
Including turning her arm into a sword.   
“I’ve never done this before”, Bismuth mumbles, flexing her sword back into her hand. She spreads her fingers wide and stares at them, eyes heated with frustration. “I wasn’t made for fighting. And neither was shapeshifting by the way.”  
Rose’s eyebrows lift; then she smiles, an arm wrapping around her waist as a deep chuckle rumbles through her. She shakes her head, light pink curls sifting, and props herself up on her own sword. “Well, who’s to say what was and wasn’t made for what”, Rose questions as she stares into the reflective blade of her sword. A moonbeam bounces off the silver and catches her in the eye, prompting a delighted smile from her. She tilts the sword to the ground and clenches her hands around the hilt before turning back to Bismuth. “Tools can have multiple uses. Who’s to say that the same doesn’t apply to a Gem?”  
Bismuth scowls down at her fingers; she pops her knuckles, pleased at the sharp sound this produces, then rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t lookin’ for a speech, Pinkie.”  
Rose’s left eye twitches, and she returns her attention back to her sword. She drags her fingers over the blade; a light cut forms along her ring finger, and she stares, transfixed by the light incision. When the skin heals, she draws in a sharp inhale and thrusts her sword above her head, watching with blank eyes as the weapon slices the moon in half. “I’m serious”, she states, presenting her back to Bismuth. “You’ve built arenas, Compounds, spires, torture devices; my Stars, you might as well have created entire planets for all that you’ve done. And yet.” She looks back at her. “You think you are nothing.”  
“And you obviously think you’re something”, Bismuth says, tossing her arms up. “I think we’ve already established that we’re all a little weird.”  
“You call it ‘weird’.” Rose lowers her sword to her side. “I call it ‘different’.”  
“I know you ain’t call me here to swing that thing around and preach.” Bismuth leans over the wooden stump sitting before her; pulling her hair back into a tight braid, she jerks her head to the side and says, “You needed something?”  
Behind her, she hears Rose sigh. She’s about to whip around and say something spiteful when Rose steps forward and places her elbows beside her own. “I wish for you to meet my friend.” Rose smiles. “My second in command, I suppose.”  
Bismuth nods. She scrapes the dirt from underneath her nails and drops her head onto her fist. “The Pearl? I mean, uh, Pearl? Does she have a preference or-”  
“As far as I know, she’s fine with Pearl. Our numbers are growing in numbers, but I doubt we’ll see too many more Pearls.”  
“Isn’t that kinda castic?”  
“Possibly. But it holds some truth, doesn’t it?”  
Bismuth rolls her eyes. But she relents, stretching her arms out in front of her. “Fair enough.” She then turns to Rose and raises her eyebrows. “When’d she get back?”  
“Just a few hours ago. She’s brought an Agate, three Moonstones, and two Jades with her”, Rose explains as she propels herself off the stump. She eyes the wood chips sticking to her with inquisitive eyes; gathering them into the palm of her hand, she smiles and scoots them around the space with her finger. “Pearl was going to spend the next few days unconditioning them, but Garnet and I thought it best she take some time off.”  
“Really?”  
“Of course. She spent five months of recruiting; reports of dissent have almost quadrupled, and we’re drawing in about eleven Gems per week. I think the respite’s more than deserved.”  
“Right. But where do I come in?”  
“Well, she hasn’t met you yet.”  
Bismuth taps her fingernails against the surface of the stump and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. Her apron, pale and tattered, sways in the breeze; her face, though immune from age and illness, is taut and weary from the past. She’s covered in a mountain of dust and grime, and her legs ache from the effort of constructing a hidden Compound within the base of the mountain the rebels have come to dwell in. She’s tired.   
She never known tired.   
“Uh huh. I’m sure there’s a shitton of other Gems she also hasn’t met. What makes me so special? Is it my muscles?”  
Rose smiles. “I never can get anything by you”, she admits with a light laugh. “Yes, there are many other Gems Pearl has yet to meet, but I believe you’d be someone of a more lasting...impact. And she as well on you.”  
“Rose. Are you playing matchmaker? Cause I could have sworn I told you-”  
“I just want you to meet her”, Rose interrupts, hands clasped in front of her. “She’d be a nice friend for you.”  
“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t want any fucking friends.”  
“And, you see, that’s why you and Pearl would be such a good fit.”  
“You switch from genuine to smartass too quickly, you know that?”  
Rose places her hands on her shoulders and giggles. “Is that a yes?”  
Bismuth glares.  
Rose smiles.  
Outside, Garnet stands with her back pressed to the wall, listening with a smile that could blind the sun.   
“Fine. But I ain’t gonna like her. And give me that sword; you’re gonna hurt yourself.”  
. . .  
Pearl’s resting in a tree. Like a bird. Perched on a branch, squatting with that beak-nose of hers traumatizing the local fauna. With her eyes wide open so that she catches sight of the approaching Bismuth even before she pushes through the taro plant leaves.   
Yeah. Weird.  
Pearl leaps from her post and lands in front of Bismuth, eyeing her with apt suspicion. She reaches forward and takes one of Bismuth’s hands in both of hers. Before Bismuth can express her protest, Pearl looks up at her and purses her lips. “You must be the Bismuth.”  
Bismuth scoffs and snatches her hand away. “And you must be the Pearl.”  
Pearl flushes blue, and Bismuth ducks her head. “I’ve heard of you on the radio”, Pearl begins, speaking so quickly that her sentences almost blend together. “Your former Compound’s been recalled; many of the higher up Gems have been demoted to janitorial duties, and there’s a rumor floating around about a mad Ruby being turned into a pet. And it’s all because of you. The Diamonds love throwing that out there.”   
At this, Pearl giggles and covers her lips with the tips of her fingers; definitely a Diamond’s Pearl.  
“Saying that it’s your fault that they don’t know how to manage a Colony after one Gem deserts the Courts”, Pearl continues. “It’s all anyone ever talks about: Gem, Diamond, rebel, slave, top caste, low caste; they’re all talking about you.” Pearl blinks, then looks Bismuth over. She points to the sloppily painted star across her arm. “Oh, and Rose mentioned you, too.” She extends her hand. “I’m Pearl; Rose’s right-hand Gem.”  
“Right.” Bismuth wraps her fingers around Pearl’s hand and gives her a firm shake, smirking when the action knocks Pearl off balance. “And I’m Bismuth. I’ve been helping Rose with construction and stuff.”   
Pearl chuckles unevenly, then clears her throat. She brings her feet together and squares her shoulders, eyeing Bismuth with a glare that doesn’t nearly carry the level of heat she intends. “Did you need something?”  
“No, not really.” Bismuth brushes a finger over her lip. When she finds a dry patch of orange juice along the finger, she smiles and licks it, giggling at the repulsed face Pearl draws. “Rose just wanted me to, uh, show you around. I guess.”  
“Well, that won’t be necessary. I’ve inhabited this valley for far longer than you have, so I obviously know my way around better than you. You must have heard her wrong, though I can’t say I’m surprised.” Pearl smirks and presses her dainty little fingers into her chest. “There is a reason why Bismuths are so low on the caste system, you know.”  
Bismuth smiles back. “Not as low as Pearls, sweetheart.”  
Pearl places her hand on the sharpened stick resting in her pouch. “Listen, oaf-”  
“No, you listen.” Bismuth sighs and brushes several locks behind her head. “This wasn’t my idea. It was Rose’s, all right? And maybe Garnet, but she was being too cryptic for me to figure it out. Either way, they’re convinced that we’ve both been working too hard and need some time off. For whatever reason, they think it’ll be better if we do that together.”  
Pearl scoffs. She folds her slim arms over her chest and purses her lips; her teal eyes stare into Bismuth’s, searching for something Bismuth hasn’t the patience to care about. “And you agreed to this? Why?”  
“Because I haven’t got anything better to do and cause I was hoping to find someone who needed to work just as much as I do.”  
At that, Pearl doesn’t say anything. Her hand falls from her sword and dangles beside her. When Bismuth doesn’t turn to meet her eye, Pearl rubs the fluffy blue fabric of her shoulders and bites her lips; the silence draws on, and she huffs, unnerved by the suddenly withdrawn Bismuth that’s wandered off to the tree she’d been squatting in.  
“I don’t need to work”, Pearl eventually protests, running to her side. “I just need to protect Rose.”  
“Have you seen her?” Bismuth shakes her head and places her hand against the tree; the wood scratches against her hand like fire ants, but she doesn’t remove it. “I think she’s more than capable of taking care of herself.”  
“Ignoring her build, I think it’s important that we remember that Rose is as new at this as we are.” Pearl drops into a cross-legged seat beside her; she watches as Bismuth traces her fingers along the grooves of the tree, surprise etching across her face at the tenderness exuded in the movements.   
“She started a revolution”, Bismuth mutters. “Before this, she supervised half of Pink’s Court. She was made for this.”  
“She wasn’t made for anything. And even if she was, her past has only prepared her for leading under someone else’s eye. Trust me.” Pearl diverts her attention to the ground. “She’s just as terrified as the rest of us.”  
“Well, she’s doing a damn good job of hiding it.”  
“I guess that’s part of what being a leader means.”  
“Maybe.” Bismuth drops her hand from the tree and turns to Pearl. She sits and reaches for her arm, pausing until Pearl gives a reluctant nod. Mindful to put several inches of space between them, Bismuth takes hold of Pearl’s arm and sighs. “Look. Garnet and Rose really want this to work. And they’re freaks, obviously, but I like ‘em. And they like us. And.” She glares at Pearl. “It wouldn’t be so bad if two low caste Gems like us wasn’t trying to kill each other. So can we just...try? We don’t have to share nests or anything, but it’d be cool if we could skip the bitch routine and get to being friendly.”  
Pearl dances her fingers against the ground. She takes a moment to consider this, tongue poking between her lips, then nods. “I suppose. Aside from Garnet, I haven’t befriended any of the Gems in the midst of all the fighting. It’d be nice to get to know at least one of them. Even a Bismuth.”  
Bismuth rolls her eyes. “Whatever you say. Frills.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. You know that review button? It wants to be your friend; you should be friends, the bestest of friends in fact!  
> But, no, really, I'd really appreciate some reviews, you guys. I so enjoyed writing this story, and it'd be awesome to hear some feedback. Like, any. Anything at all.


	7. Outfitted

Garnet’s the one to suggest Bismuth be the rebels’ outfitter.  
“No one knows building better than you”, they whisper during night assembly.   
“Yeah, because I’m the only Bismuth here. And, you know what, you’re right; I am a pretty good builder. Of buildings. And tools and protective gear and trinkets. I can get you guys some armor, sure, but weaponry is a little out of my league.”  
Garnet shakes their head. At the front of the room, Tiger is relaying her observations from a Ruby Command Post; her eyes dart in Garnet and Bismuth’s direction every few seconds, but she doesn’t show any signs of approaching them. Nevertheless, Bismuth gives Garnet a brief nudge, sighing when they cede and lower their voice. “You just need practice. We’re sure it’s the same process, just with different parts going in different places.”  
“Have you guys ever built anything before?”  
“No. But we’ve also never fought anyone before. Ruby was a guard, meant to protect but only in the passive form. Sapphire was an aristocrat, created to further establish the caste system and occasionally provide insight to the Diamonds. ” They raise their eyebrows and gesture to themselves. “Now look at us.”  
“Y’all do look fancy. I think yall’s color schemes have begun to blend into each other.”  
Garnet rolls their eyes. “We think you’re missing the point.”  
“Obviously.”  
Tiger clears her throat, and the two duck their heads. Garnet stares into her lap, then says, “We’re fighting with sticks and stones, and that’s not a figure of speech. We need weapons; we need you.”  
Bismuth sighs. She adjusts the strap of her apron, presses her fingers into the corners of her eyes, and purses her lips. “Let’s say I agree to this. I don’t have the environment, and I ain’t got the tools to handle that kind of a project.”  
“Then, we’d find you a workplace. And we’ve heard that when you were a blacksmith, you used to use your shapeshifting to create and mend tools.”  
“Only when there weren’t any others available. Y’all asking me to arm hundreds of Gems with my bare hands; I don’t even know what kind of stress that would put on my gem.”  
Garnet draws back. Their cheeks turn a bright pink, and their eyes close. When they open them, the intensity behind them has faded, instead replaced with caution. “Of course”, they say with a brief nod. Their hands are resting in their lap, clinging tautly to one another. “Shapeshifting does take practice to master”, they continue in a low voice. “And even then, frequent usage would put a strain on the Gem. We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”  
“Garnet, chill.” Bismuth drops an elbow onto her thigh and offers a calming smile. “Look, Imma help in whatever way I can. Just don’t expect five sets of weapons for every Gem, okay? Bismuths can take a lot of pressure, but we do have our limits.”  
“And we’ll respect them.” Garnet fiddles with the frills of her dress. “Does that mean…”  
“Yeah. I’ll make y’all some weapons. Can’t guarantee they’ll be any good, though.”  
“Oh, wonderful.” She pulls Bismuth in for a hug, drawing the attention of the Gems standing in front of them. Bismuth blushes and waves them off; she wraps a warm arm around Garnet’s waist, tilting her head back to whisper, “We’re causing a scene.”  
“Let them watch; they’re probably jealous.”  
“Or uncomfortable.”  
“Well, then let them be uncomfortable.”  
Bismuth glances up at them. She wraps her other arm around their waist, pats their back, and nods. “Yeah.” She catches Pearl’s wandering eye and raises an eyebrow. Before she can say anything, Pearl turns around to face Tiger, who’s begun to speak rather aggressively. “No problem there.”  
. . .  
Rose’s sword comes to her whilst bathing. Stereotypical, maybe, but true.  
She’s eleven feet under water, curled into a ball and thinking of cold, blue hands, when a ray of sunlight pierces through the surface of the plunge pool. At the cliff of the waterfall, there sits a tree of cherry blossoms. Several of the flowers have drifted from the tree and fallen onto the pool; some have dipped beneath the water, floating about Bismuth like floral moons orbiting a lifeless planet. When the sun passes over them, it does so with a festive flourish. The light converts into a soft pink and settles over her. She lifts her arm and stares, marvelling as the grey of her arms blooms with life; it is a sliver of light, thin and hardly noticeable but sharp and distinguishable all the same.   
And with that, Bismuth propels herself through the water, swims to shore, and runs to her cave, cherry blossom gripped tightly in her hand. Upon storming through the mouth of the cave, she snatches a piece of stone from a nook before proceeding to draw the sword. It’s a crude image, hardly what she really wants to capture, but it’s vital that she cements it in reality before it fades from her consciousness. She morphs her hand into a pickaxe and picks the image from the wall.   
Later, she’ll travel with Simmer to a nearby volcano and create the first room of what will evolve into the first forge of the rebels. With the hyper Ruby as her guard and newfound acquaintance, Bismuth will forge the first sword of the rebellion; a sword fit only for the leader of the rebellion, she’ll lift the sword from the river of lava and watch the orange stream trickle down the blade and drop onto her foot. And it won’t hurt, partly because of her thick skin and partly because she’s too elated to be concerned with the sensation anyway. Bismuth will turn to Simmer, blade resting in her hands in smile. Because the revolution’s only just begun.   
And there are many swords left to be made.


	8. Under Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bismuth and Pearl have a chat, and Bismuth partakes in her first mission as a Crystal Gem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is more of the calm before the storm. Seriously, things get kinda bumpy from here on out.

Bismuth joins the fight after a fleet of Homeworld Emeralds incinerate three hundred and fifty one rebels. Their numbers are still low enough for this to be an alarming event. Even still, as Bismuth attends a mass funeral for their fallen sisters, her chest aches with a shame and guilt she thought she’d buried decades ago. Her Gem pulses with more than enough emotion her form’s capable of containing, and her hands begin to tremble. Before Pearl and Garnet can take hold of her, Bismuth pushes past their arms and dashes out the door and takes off into one of many caves spiraling throughout the mountain.  
The deeper she travels, the thicker the air becomes; the caves grow larger and more abundant so that by the time she eventually crashes to her feet, she’s lost any semblance of direction. She gasps, tugs her legs close to her chest, and drops her head against her knees. She’s aware that she’s sitting in a shallow pool of lava, but the scorching licks of the molten rocks is oddly soothing; without it, Bismuth fears she’s slip between the crevices in the earth and fall for all eternity. It’s nice to have such a jarring sensation enveloping her, grounding her. Even with the closeness of her fellow rebels, many of whom she’s grown to see as good friends, it’s been so long since she’s had something to keep her from spiralling.   
And maybe she forgot. Maybe she forgot, for just a second, that she was anything more than a glorified fuck up stumbling after a cause; maybe she forgot that her entire reason for joining the rebels contradicted the values of said rebellion.   
“A bad fit for Homeworld and a bad fit for the rebels”, Bismuth mutters, scooping a pool of lava into her hand; the heated, luminescent liquid spills between her fingers and onto her smock. Steam rises from the cloth, but it holds firm, unyielding against the searing liquid. “What the fuck are you?”  
“Hey.” Feather-light footsteps approach her from behind; moments later, a thin hand lowers on her shoulder, delivering quick little taps until Bismuth turns her head.  
It’s Pearl.  
The hand travels down Bismuth’s arm before eventually settling over her hand; it’s an awkward fit, given that Pearl’s stretching over the pool of lava, but she doesn’t move to her adjust herself. Nonetheless, Bismuth scoots closer to her, wiping a hand across the back of her neck when Pearl lets out a relieved sigh.   
“Only you would take a lava bath to calm down”, Pearl notes lightly. She squeezes Bismuth’s hand and crosses her legs. “We’ve never taken a loss this big before.”  
“I know.”  
“They mean to dispirit us; they mean to use our capacity to feel against us.”  
Bismuth snorts. She looks up from her lap and heaves a shaky inhale. “Well, it’s working.” She lifts one knee, watches the disruption in the lava, and sighs; above her, Pearl stares, her free hand resting against her knee. “I ain’t join this to rebel. Y'all know that, right?” The ceiling above them weakens, and a trickle of lava opens in the resulting crack. It plops onto Bismuth’s head and trails down her chin, hissing as it makes contact with her cool skin; she raises a finger and flicks the lava away, then rises to her feet and crawls onto the cliff Pearl’s resting on. “Before...before all of this”, she explains with a wave of her hand, crossing one leg over the other. “I had a friend. Beryl.” She chuckles. “She was an uptight little butthead. Kinda like you actually.”  
Pearl scowls. “She sounds amazing.”  
“Ah, well; she kinda was.” BIsmuth reaches into her smock’s pocket and pulls out Beryl’s wand; after years of usage, it’s lost all power, and its color has begun to fade; but its structure is still sound, and it almost shines from the frequent washings she gives it. She rubs a finger along its side and smiles, an image of the squat Gem playing behind her eyelids. With her other hand, she reaches into back into her pocket.  
“She was...confused, I think. She shitted on the Diamond Authority even more than more me, and, you know, that’s saying something”, Bismuth says, lightly turning over the pieces of Beryl. “But for all that shitting, she would never admit that she was a malform.”  
Pearl’s nose scrunches up in disgust. “Ugh, is that term still in use? It’s not even accurate; not to mention it’s extremely insensitive.”  
“Unfortunately, yes”, Bismuth says with an eyeroll. “And I don’t think the Diamonds care about sensitivity. If they did, we probably wouldn’t be where we are now.”  
“Fair enough.”   
She smiles, glances down at Beryl’s shards, and shakes her head. “Beryl was...well, I knew a lot of Gems that, now, I could see leaving the Courts and joining us; heck, a lot of ‘em did. But Rylie was, well, she was Rylie. She could go from squealing about the polyamory rumor amongst the Diamonds to criticizing a Gem for even the slightest hint of deviation.” Chuckling, Bismuth tosses her head back and slaps a hand against her thigh; several tears threaten to escape from her eyes, so she presses her fingers into them. “Man, and don’t even suggest that she was recalcitrant; she’d pitch a fit so hard, so fast, it’d make your Gem spin.”  
“You’ll have to forgive me, Bismuth, but she sounds-”  
“Like a stuck up bitch?”  
“Not how I would have put it but ‘yes’. Why would you befriend her if she was so loyal to a cause that didn’t even care about her? Or anyone else for that matter? And.” She flicks Bismuth’s nose, smirking at the snort she receives in return. “I am not anything like her.”  
“Not exactly, but I can see some of her in you; or you in her; whatever. And she was, uh, kind of an acquired taste. Sometimes, I swear, I just wanted to crap her by the neck and just throttle her.” Bismuth eases her chin into her hand and closes her eyes; she hums and pulls her lower lip underneath her teeth. “But that wasn’t all there was to her. When we had downtime or just a relatively laidback assignment, we’d talk. And it was like we weren’t Gems anymore; we were people, like humans, and we didn’t have to worry about what we said because it was just the two of us.” Her smile returns, though she continues to worry at her lip. “I think she forgot cause we’d be in the middle of a conversation, and her eyes would practically explode out of their sockets; she’d remind me of the assignment and be quiet for the next few days. But Rylie always came back. Especially later on, closer to, uh, to when they got her.”  
Pearl leans closer to Bismuth; hesitantly, like a Peridot approaching a malfunctioning piece of hardware, she rests her head against Bismuth’s arm. Bismuth stiffens for a moment, then pauses, slowly allowing her muscles to laxen as the perception of a threat fades. When Pearl is certain she won’t startle, she looks up and pulls a dreadlock behind Bismuth’s ear. “What happened?”  
“Well… after I left my post one day, I got onto the Diamonds’ radar; Beryl found me a little while later, hiding from everything imaginable. She was helping me escape from my old Compound when some bitches in a Red Eye snuffed her Gem.” Bismuth sighs. “It’s why I joined; at first, I mean. Those first few years, I was drownin’ in hate. I wanted to hunt those bastards down and shove whatever I could get my hands on through their Gems; and then shatter their shards until there was nothing but a dust left that I’d scatter across the earth. I was so, so ready to kill them.”  
Pearl nods. “But you didn’t.”  
Bismuth wraps an arm around Pearl’s shoulder; if not for the subject at hand, she’d laugh at the sight of her arm covering Pearl’s upper body. Instead, she watches her, both amused and comforted that a simple act such as talking to a creature this small could lift such a tremendous weight off her shoulders. “But I didn’t”, she agrees. “At the time, we didn’t have any weapons. And I didn’t think of my shapeshifting as anything other than an eternal reminder of my time in the Courts. But it’s been damn near a century. Chances are I’ll never find ‘em. And I ain’t really got enough hate left in me to crush ‘em anyway.”   
She raises her finger, eyebrows lifting in surprise at the softness of Pearl’s hair. Pearl doesn’t say anything, but she offers a light smile; her eyes are half-lidded, weary from her daily battles against Homeworld, but they are full of compassion and understanding. Being caught underneath such a look helps to sooth the rigidity that’s befallen Bismuth. And even if she still feels so broken and jagged, it’s nice to know that there are other Gems just as twisted as she that will sit and listen to the ravings of a mad woman.   
“We are, all of us, hurt. In some way or another”, Pearl eventually says. “We were created to sustain substantial amounts of pain. But we still break. And we break more easily than you would imagine. But that does not mean we are failures. Even the most durable crystal breaks under pressure.”   
Bismuth wraps her other arm around around Pearl, humming when the smaller Gem leans back and falls comfortably against her chest. “So you’re saying we’re shiny rocks?”  
Pearl rolls her eyes; she lifts her hand and presses her fingers against Bismuth’s cheek. “I’m saying that we are the Crystal Gems. And, come whatever, we will always find a way. We’ll break free of our demons and, along the way, maybe even save someone else from their own.” She closes her eyes and tilts her head up, exposing her neck to Bismuth. “That’s why we fight. That’s why we rebelled. That’s why we will survive.”  
Bismuth dips her face into Pearl’s neck and breathes. “Then I’m ready.”  
“I suppose you are. But first.” Pearl drops her hand onto Bismuth’s. “I think it’s time to let go.”  
. . .  
Her first mission is to infiltrate her former Compound: break in, convert the malforms that have yet to be “quarantined”, and get out. A simple enough task for a Crystal Gem’s first assignment but terrifying nonetheless. She’ll be putting herself at risk for a shattering, but she’s also returning to the place that took everything from her; almost in akin to a returning to a Kindergarten with the hopes of returning life to the barren wasteland. But the Bismuth that came to this planet exists as an entirely new gem, which, she supposes, is more than the life in the ‘gardens can say.   
So she says ‘yes’.   
She leaves her forge and her people; she goes home.  
And finds home to be very much the same.  
There’s the increased level of security, and the Compound itself has been reconstructed. But everything else is the same; the goal to understand the earth, the resource sapping, the prevalent stench of anxiety, it’s all there.   
And in a way, it’s a comfort. It’s comforting to creep to the shadows and watch the sweat trickling down a Pearl’s temple as she rushes after a Sapphire; it’s comforting to see a group of Amethysts joking around, looking over their shoulders every few seconds; it’s comforting to watch these Gems at inspection, taut and still, eyes wide with trepidation as they await clearance for work. It’s comforting to finally see that amongst her own, she wasn’t alone.  
It makes convincing them all the more easier. Crawling from her hiding space beneath a table and stating her ID, she expands her chest and tells her story; the Citrine, Blue Quartz, and Nacre hold their weapons at their sides. But as Bismuth delves deeper into her life, they gradually loosen their grip until the weapons clatter to the ground. They draw closer, eyes wide and bright, and Bismuth meets them; her hands are open, as is her heart, and there’s no repressing her smile because she was once like these Gems. She was once confused yet curious, and she would have given anything to have met Garnet a few centuries earlier. She owes it to herself, and to all her fallen sisters, to guide them away from this prison and to Rose.  
“To freedom”, Bismuth says, gesturing to the star imprinted on her shoulder. “Come with me, and I’ll take you to freedom.”  
“Please, tell us.” The Citrine reaches for her, only to lower her hand at the last moment; she presses the hand into her shoulder and smiles. And maybe it’s from the fluorescent lighting, but, for just a moment, her eyes twinkle. “What does freedom look like?”  
Bismuth chuckles; she extends her hand and shifts it into a heart. “Love.” She smiles and shrugs, her cheeks flushing a dark grey. “It looks like love.”  
“And what, exactly is love”, the Nacre asks, arms folded and eyebrows burrowed. The Blue Quartz clinging to her peeks over her shoulder and nods. “Yes, what is that? And how do we get some of it? Where can we find it?” She skips across the room and pauses before Bismuth, hands clasped together as she bounces up and down. “Tell us immediately.”  
Bismuth gives the Quartz’s shoulder a light tap and snickers. “Calm down, hot stuff. But all right.” She takes a teak, waves a hand, and crosses her legs. The other Gems, confusion bright in their eyes, mimic her movements, slowly and gently placing their legs atop each other. Bismuth stretches her hand out and slams the door shut, then extends it further to prop a drawer beneath the doorknob. “So”, she says, clearing her throat. “Let’s talk about love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Criticisms? Things you liked? Let me know in a comment.


	9. What I Am, Who I Am

“I believe you’re getting quite good at this.” Rose is watching Bismuth, her arm resting against a small mound of dirt. Her eyes are half-lidded and soft; she’s staring with an amused smile, but her expression is uneasy and stilted, as if waiting for something unpleasant to happen.  
Bismuth shouts, strikes her arm-hammers against a column of rock, and giggles; the rock crumbles to a pile of dust and pebbles. Before it can give way, Bismuth lifts her arms and brings them down, pounding the remaining rocks into a fine, orange powder. “‘Good’”, she snorts as a rock collides with her nose. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘amazing’”. Her hand morphs into a cleaver; she tosses it through the air, squealing when it slices a rock formation in half; the top half shatters upon making contact with the ground, and Rose winces. Bismuth raises an eyebrow. “Okay, uh, how about ‘electric’? I know I’m really shocking you with all of this badassery. I know you said I’d be a good asset to the bunch but.” She laughs and gestures to herself. “Look at me. I’m a part of something again. And it’s got nothing to do with those totalitarian egoheads.”  
Rose approaches Bismuth, fumbling with one of the many curls spilling over her head. “I am...impressed with how far you’ve come in these past few years. You’ve proven yourself quite capable in battle.”  
“Really?” Bismuth smiles; she shifts her hands into two malaces and hurls them into the mountain side. An avalanche of boulders rolls down the mountain. The two leap out of the way, Rose’s lips turning thin as Bismuth clenches her fists and beams. She turns to Rose and splays her fingers. “You know, I was worried I wasn’t being as brutal as I could be and-”  
“Well, being a brute isn’t really the point”, Rose interrupts, waving her hands in front of her. She sighs and tosses an arm around Bismuth’s shoulders. “The point is to just, well, to make a point, I suppose. We fight to show the Diamonds that we live for ourselves and ourselves only. Not-not to...break things.”  
Bismuth nods; she purses her lips, averts her eyes, and clears her throat. “Of course. But I mean, we can do all that and still kick ass. Right?” Not awaiting an answer, she walks away and crawls onto a rock formation the size of a small room. She stares up at the sun and lies on her back. Ever since she popped out of the ground, Bismuth has always had an affinity for the sun. It’s heat, everlasting and altruistic, always seemed to reach out to her; even on her darkest days, even when they were planets away from a sun, a calming heat always seemed to reach out to her.  
It’s a humid day on earth, and she feels warm. She feels protected.  
She suspects Rose doesn’t like the reason for that warmth.   
“It’s not like they’re good or anything”, she mutters. “We’ve been fighting for centuries now; if there are any Gems from the Courts left, they obviously wanna be there. There ain’t no reason for us not to clobber them into the dirt.”  
“Well, that’s kind of subjective.” Rose walks to the edge of the formation and frowns; Bismuth turns on her side. “We’ve taken in countless Gems who expressed difficulty leaving the Courts. In fact, I haven’t met a single one who’s voiced otherwise. Not even you.”  
“Hm.”  
“Bismuth, please. Not everyone in the Courts is inherently evil. Some might have stayed because they were afraid of change.” She flicks a pebble off the formation, then drops her head onto her arm; her eyes narrow, and she sighs, staring at a smudge of dirt on her arm. “It’s not easy to just abandon the only life you’ve ever known; I’m not surprised so many’ve refused our advances.”  
Bismuth sits up and glares at Rose. “You saying you siding with them?”  
“I’m saying I understand them”, Rose replies, her voice refined like royalty. “And whether you admit it or not, you do, too.”  
“I understand that when the time came for freedom or ‘comfort’, those fuckers chose ‘comfort’. I also understand that if weren’t for the Diamonds’ following, this war would’ve been as bad as it’s been.”  
“You can’t possibly put this all on them.”  
Bismuth wraps her arms around her knees. Her eyes dart to Rose’s, then back away, intent on glaring at an unsuspecting weed squeezing through the earth. “No”, she admits begrudgingly. “But this whole thing would be easier if they’d stop squatting with the Diamonds. If they did, there’d be less of an opposition and less of us lying in shards.”  
“I know of your...past”, Rose says; she pauses, watches Bismuth for any sign of discomfort. When she finds none, only a hand dipping into her smock, she sighs, crawls onto the rock, and continues. “You say you’re fine and that you’ve coped, but I see you, Bismuth. And you’re lying.”  
Bismuth huffs. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“Your enmity for the Diamonds and the caste system is festering”, Rose insists. “And I know there’s no minimizing all that you’ve lost, but you can’t allow you grief to dictate you.”  
“Well, it ain’t. And I’m fine.” She turns to face Rose. “So butt out.”  
“I’ve been speaking to your troop. They say you’re more enthusiastic for the cause than ever, that your empathy for our newest recruits is stronger than ever. You’re happier, stronger, more goal-oriented.”  
“Yes, and that’s all true, so what’s the fucking problem?”  
“They also say that when the time comes to poof a Gem versus imprisoning them, you’re more inclined to poof them.”  
“Come on”, Bismuth scoffs. “We’re at war. You of all people know now ain’t the time for tea and a sit down.”  
“Yes. But it’s not the poofing that troubles me. It’s your method of poofing and the way you interact with those Gems; taunting them, trapping them, crushing them like you had those rocks and boulders.” Rose sighs. “We don’t torture”, she says, looking up with arched eyebrows. “I was lenient before, but I can’t have you fighting if you’re going to be this….abrasive. We’re here to stop Homeworld’s reign; not to replicate it.” Rose chuckles, raises her eyebrows, and places a hand on her hip. “Or in all that glory…” She stalks to Bismuth and stares down at her. “Have you forgotten that there is a reason for our being here? You are aware that we didn’t just start a war out of sheer boredom, aren’t you?”  
“Don’t.” Bismuth inhales. She closes her eyes and clenches her fingers. Her knuckles pop, and her gem sinks further into her chest. Releasing the gathered breath, she opens her eyes and turns to Rose. “Don’t you ever”, Bismuth hisses. “Ever talk to me like that.”  
“I don’t understand-”  
“You ain’t any better than me.” She stomps over to Rose and juts a finger into her arm, steaming tears bubbling over her eyelids. “And I ain’t letting no upper-crust, flower-sniffing Quartz talk at me like I don’t understand nothing.”  
Rose blinks and cocks her head to the side; she flicks Bismuth’s finger off of her, then crosses her arms. “Before you take offense”, she says cooly. “Remember we’re only having this discussion because of your own actions.” She brushes several curls around her neck and scowls, her usually compassionate eyes flat and burning in a way that doesn’t fit her face. “You will do what you’re told, and you will cease these...violent...pigheaded actions.”  
“And if I don’t?”  
“I don’t think I need to explain. Or do I?”  
Bismuth holds Rose’s glare; her skin is hot with frustration, and her hands are shaking. There’s a tingling sensation afflicting her, not unlike the one that precedes shapeshifting. She has the image of a morningstar resting at the forefront of her mind, eager to be materialised and-  
“Rose!” Garnet’s head pokes from the top of the mountain; when she sees the two, she slides down the side, pausing just inches before them. Her eyes dart between them, taking note of the overt tension, and she clears her throat. “Is-Is everything all right?”  
“Everything is fine”, Rose assures, turning from Bismuth. “We were just settling a few things.”  
“I don’t recall anything being settled.”  
“Uh, right.” Garnet hands Rose a tablet and gestures to the screen. “We’ve received a report from our division in the southern hemisphere; there’s been an attack.”  
“An attack?” Rose frowns, scrawls through the report, and shakes her head. “But that doesn’t make any sense”, she murmurs as she highlights areas of the message. “Their base is barely finished with construction, and none of those Gems have even had field experience; how were they discovered.”  
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out”, Garnet says, adjusting her visor. “Crazy Lace thinks we’re dealing with a mole.”  
Bismuth rolls her eyes and hops down from her rock. Placing a hand on one hip, she reaches out with her other hand to give Garnet’s shoulder a light pat. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Get enough tree sap into her, and she’ll swear everyone’s a rat.”  
“That’s what I thought at first, too.” She smiles, reaches up, and gives Bismuth’s hand a tight squeeze. “But I’ve been looking into this division; these are new recruits, fresh out of the Courts. And their station has never been used. Now, it could be paranoia, but I just don’t see how they could’ve been discovered.”  
Bismuth raises an eyebrow. “Did they leave their base?”  
“No; most new recruits don’t. But still, even if they had, the Courts don’t extend that far into their hemisphere. It’s why it was chosen for them. The only way their location could have been known outside of our forces is if someone on the inside was supplying that information.” She places her hands on her hips, gives the two another look, and bites her lip. “So whatever’s going on here, can it wait until after we’ve taken a look into this?”  
Bismuth shows Garnet her hands, then begins crawling up the mountain. “I don’t see why not.”  
. . .  
She’s accompanied to the base with three companions: Biggs, Loghart, and Pearl; anyone of whom, Bismuth can’t help but notice, are more than capable of handling the mission on their own. And if the sideways glances she receives before the warp are worth anything, they know as much, too. It’s annoying, knowing that she’s been reduced to Search and Rescue missions, but there’s not much else she can do. Bismuth’s seen her schedule for the next several weeks, and it’s full of nothing but S&R, Data Collection, and reconnaissance.  
“It’s not so bad”, Pearl whispers, wincing as she scoops a poofed Gem off the ground; she cradles her in her hands, then looks up at Bismuth, smiling wobbly as she slides the orange gem into a gem cradle. “Look. We’re helping Gems. That’s neat, right?”  
“Please. She only sent me here cause she’s worried I’m gonna fuck up her precious rebellion.”  
“She just doesn’t want any more Gems being hurt than there needs to be.”  
They come to what was once an entrance to the center of a base; a pile of boulders rests at their feet, unmoving. Bismuth morphs her hand into a large ball and slams it against the pile. Several boulders threaten to crush them, but Bismuth is faster, turning the rocks to a crumbly sand within seconds. Her hand returns, and she steps into the entrance, Pearl at her side. “Maybe a few Gems need to be hurt”, Bismuth murmurs as she squints into the dark room. “How many of our own have we lost; fair’s fair, right?”  
Pearl grimaces. She swipes a hand over her gem, and a lightbeam swoops over the room, illuminating the crushed communication panels and display screens. “Well, the Diamonds have never been the type for fairness”, she reasons as she steps over a ruptured electric tube. “And even so, it wouldn’t be of any help to anyone if we resorted to their methods. Trust that Rose knows what she’s doing. She’s always looked out for us.”  
Bismuth crouches beside a sparking control panel; a holographic image sputters above it, though it can’t seem to hold form. After she shifts her fingers into a pair of pliers and snips a cord behind the panel, the image fades, and the sparking ceases. She tosses the cord into a far corner, places her hands on her knees, and stands. Taking hold of one arm, she turns to one of the extending corridors. “I know”, Bismuth admits. “It’s just hard; sometimes, it feels like she’s not all the way here. You know? She talks about how beautiful and amazing earth is; how it gives you the chance to reinvent and further discover yourself. Well, I’ve discovered me. And this me wants revenge.”  
Pearl walks up behind her; she wraps her hand around Bismuth’s wrist and scratches her nails against the skin there. This seems to bring her back to earth, as it makes Bismuth look down at her. But there’s still a faraway look in her eyes, as if she’s thinking of another place, another time, another Bismuth. “You don’t need revenge, Bismuth. It won’t help you.”  
“You wouldn’t understand”, Bismuth chides. She turns to Pearl. “Your reason for fighting is still alive.”  
Pearl looks away, but she tightens her grip around the wrist she’s taken hold of. “That’s not my fault. And it’s not Rose’s. Or anyone else’s for that matter. Beryl’s gone, and nothing you do is gonna change that fact.”  
“I’m not looking to change anything. I just need to feel something; anything’s better than nothing, I’m telling you, Pearl, I can’t take it anymore.”   
Pearl steps in front of her. Bismuth doesn’t meet her eye, instead favoring to stare at her feet. So Pearl kneels, taking Bismuth’s hands in her own, and guides her to the floor. She crawls into her lap and places her hands against her cheeks.   
Bismuth doesn’t move.  
“Destroying other Gems is only gonna make more Gems like you”, Pearl explains, catching a tear with her thumb. “And as magnificent as you are, we really don’t need more Gems like you.”  
Bismuth sniffles and chokes on a laugh. “Pearl, you’re terrible at pep talks.”  
Pearl winces, cheeks flushing blue, and ducks her head. “That was horrible, wasn’t it? I meant-”  
“I know what you meant”, she interrupts. She stretches out her legs, rotates her neck, and stares down at Pearl.   
Pearl stares back.  
“You know”, Bismuth says as she drags her thumb over the cotton-like fabric of Pearl’s skirt; “I told y’all how this was gonna be if I joined. From the beginning, all I’ve done is told y’all. And y’all took me in anyway. Why?”  
Pearl flicks her fingers against Bismuth’s shoulder. “Well”, she begins with a heavy exhale. “Rose, because she figured it’d help you to be around other Gems like you. Garnet, because she liked you and knew what it meant to love someone.”  
“Mm. And you?”  
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just...heard your story and...and I didn’t understand how someone like you could relate so much to our cause. I wanted to understand. I wanted to get to know you.”  
Bismuth’s head falls on a slant, her hair tickling her exposed shoulder like fuzzy little fingers. She hums, rolls her head back, then considers Pearl with an inquisitive eye. “Someone like me?”  
“Ah. How do I explain this? So you and Rose.” Pearl tucks her feet underneath her and stares at her hands. “Both towards the, er, larger spectrum of Gems; only, Rose is bright and pink and approachable. And-And an upper-crust no less. She’s loyal and strong and articulate and so painfully raw. Then, there’s you-”  
“Grey and dull and low-caste me”, Bismuth finishes with a sour smile. “A lowly Bismuth only meant for building things and poofing Gems; definitely not the type for a rebellion looking to inspire and protect.”  
“I’m sorry”, Pearl says quietly. “I know that’s horribly reductionistic and stereotypical, and I hate that I could even think that, even if it was centuries of years ago.”  
“No, I get it.” She rolls onto her side and winces, shaking her head at herself. “When I first met you, all I could think of was some pompous, delicate doll that needed to be returned to her owner.”  
Pearl snorts, rolls to face her, and punches Bismuth in the shoulder. “Nobody owns me”, she says, words hiccupy with laughter. “I am my own Gem.”  
“Yeah. You got heart, P. Don’t let anybody tell you different.”  
Pearl blushes and looks down. “Thank you. And you are so much more than the brute that you pretend to be.”  
Bismuth places a hand beneath the back of her head and sighs. “Even here, planets away from Homeworld and centuries spent out of their Courts, fighting the fight, they’ve still got us.” Pressing her fingers against her lips, she closes her eyes. And she smiles. “I am pretty. And loving. And smart. And a friend. No matter what I look like. Or what I may be.”  
Pearl reaches up and places her fingers against Bismuth’s cheek. Bismuth presses their foreheads together, and the room fades to black as the light projecting from Pearl’s gem is covered; she doesn’t seem to mind.  
Bismuth takes Pearl’s hand in hers and stares down at it; it’s so much smaller than her own, soft and soothing like the seafoam that crashes against tan beaches. If she hadn’t known the Gem the hand was attached to, she might have been afraid of crushing it. But she does know, and she is not afraid.   
And neither, she’s surprised to see, is Pearl.   
“We want you here”, Pearl is saying. “But it’s just as important to us that you wanna be here.”  
“I wanna be here”, Bismuth replies; she turns her attention from Pearl’s hand to her eyes and smiles. “I wanna be with you.”  
Pearl’s eyes widen; her hand trembles in Bismuth’s.   
“You, uh, you guys”, Bismuth stutters. Pearl crawls, stumbles actually, from her lap and turns her back to her. “I wanna be with you guys, I wanna be a Crystal Gem, I, uh, yeah, I wasn’t finished.”  
“We should.” She clears her throat. “We should get back to work. Rose gave us a mission and-”  
“Right.” Bismuth closes her eyes. “She did, didn’t she?”  
“Yes. And we-we, uh, we should be getting back to that.”  
“Of course.” Pearl summons her spear from her gem and grips it tightly. Then, looking back over her shoulder, she nods and says, “Let’s check on those survivors.”


	10. Search and Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you guys. So this fic is officially on hiatus. I love this little origins thing I've got going, but I'm not really sure where I want to go from here. Thank you to everyone who's read, commented, and a drop a kudo, but the bus stops here. For a while at least. Anyway, here is the "last" (TBD) chapter of Unearthed. Hope you guys like it.

There aren’t many survivors. And of the few Gems that remained, only one of them is lucid enough to relay the attack to the S&R team. She’s a Jasper. Despite her towering stature, though, she’s a rather timid Gem; legs drawn to her chest and eyes resting at Bismuth and Pearl’s feet, she sniffles and bites her lip.  
“It’s okay”, Pearl says, stepping aside to allow Biggs to pass by, a growling Carnelian contained in her arms like a piece of luggage. Bismuth pulls a face but remains quiet as Pearl comforts the Jasper. “We’re here to help.”  
The Jasper looks up and stares, her soft amber eyes swimming with tears and fear; Pearl lowers to the floor and offers her hand; the Jasper accepts, clinging to it so tightly that Bismuth’s partially worried for the appendage. But Pearl doesn’t so much as wince at the pressure, and Bismuth remembers, with an ever increasing fondness, that this dainty little Gem quite possibly might be the toughest Gem she knows.  
Confident that Pearl has the situation handled, Bismuth wanders off. Loghart’s fiddling with a sputtering instrument Bismuth doesn’t recognize, and Biggs is struggling to remove the Canelian’s fangs from her arm; the other survivors are cowering in a position not far off from the Carnelian, and Bismuth hasn’t the slightest idea what she’s supposed to be doing.  
“The success rate of this mission would drive a Peridot mad”, she murmurs as she crouches beside a wall; there are strange markings littering these caves, though they’ve become more prominent as the team delves into the system. Here, the markings are several inches deep and long. It’s not like anything she’s ever seen before. Of course, these days, she’s becoming acquainted with a lot of new things, so this isn’t of substantial worry. Nonetheless, she takes a moment to linger, fingers pressing into the marks and their surrounding area, before venturing further into the mountain.  
The light from the division’s equipment fades, so Bismuth reaches into her pocket and pulls out Beryl’s wand; it crackles and whirs as it sparks to life and illuminates the cave with a dim, blue light. It’s almost sad, she thinks as she inspects her surroundings. Beryl’s been dead for centuries, but her wand’s always been there, pristine and pure. Now, it’s weathered with age and frequent use, held together only by adhesives Crazy Lace brought from Homeworld upon recruitment.  
“Nothing down here”, Bismuth sighs as she traces a finger over the wand’s base; it expands into a tablet, and she scrawls her fingers across the screen, pausing when she sees a missed call from Rose. Her fingers curl in on each other, and she inhales sharply.  
Rose.  
Now that a day’s passed since the incident, any residing anger Bismuth’s holding has dwindled to tepid frustration; in all fairness, Rose had attempted a civil discussion with her. She just happened to step on a nerve and dig up some unpleasant memories and caught the other end of Bismuth’s ire. Seeing the Quartz standing so proudly, glaring at her with such contempt, and later ordering her to a mission she’d wanted no part in; itt was far too reminiscent of her time in the Courts. And even if Rose isn’t like the Homeworld Elite, sometimes, it’s hard to look at her and not feel heated coals settle deep within her belly.  
“Come on”, Bismuth murmurs, closing her eyes. She taps Rose’s icon and waits, trembling as the wand trills. “We don’t have time for this shit.”  
Rose’s face fills the screen; the usual softness behind her eyes is gone, and it takes all of BIsmuth’s strength not to bristle.  
“Yes?”  
“Yeah, uh.” She clears her throat. “You called, and I figured you wanted an update on the mission.”  
Rose shifts in her chair. Drawing closer to the screen, she drapes her arm over one her armrests and considers her for a second. With her soft lilac dress and thick, pick curls, she carries an aura of serenity and innocence. But the passivity etched into her face and the terse set of her shoulders brings about a sense of importance, of royalty, of something to be admired.  
Of something to rule.  
“Whoever lead the attack’s gone”, Bismuth states, eyes fixed on Rose’s. “Those who survived are mostly in shock, but Pearl’s working on one that might be of assistance; there’s not much else to do.”  
Rose nods. Her curls bounce with the movement, and Bismuth stares, vision blurring, before forcing herself to look away. It always hurts to stare at her for too long “All right”, she eventually says. “You can leave whenever you’re ready but be thorough with your inspections.” She reaches forward as if to sign off but stops, her hand just inches from her screen. Pressing her back to her chair, she sighs, glances around the room, then turns back to her screen. “Bismuth? Could we talk?”  
She shakes her head. “I’m kind of busy. Can it wait til later?”  
“You’re standing in a cave, staring at the walls. And, as you’ve said, there isn’t anything to do. How are you busy?”  
“Don’t be a goose, Rose.” Bismuth tosses up her hands and scoffs; the wand-tablet floats before her, and she turns her back to it and Rose. “Look, I’m not in the mood, okay? Why do we have to do this now?”  
“Because I have something of a pressing matter to take care and I may not be have the time to talk about it later. It’s paramount that we settle this now.”  
“...Okay. Ominous.” Her back still to the wand-tablet, she raises her eyebrows and glances at the light reflecting from the screen on the cavern walls. “Everything all right?”  
“Everything will be fine. Different, possibly, but it’ll be fine. I promise. Now would you please just allow me to explain?”  
“There’s nothing to explain”, Bismuth bites. She wraps her arms around her waist; eyes now focused on a large rock jutting from the earth, she huffs and says, “You talked at me. No. You talked over me. And you know how I feel about that.”  
“It was a mistake. A horrible mistake, and I am so sorry for committing it, but I didn’t mean any harm by it.”  
“Bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing; don’t deny it.”  
“Bismuth-”  
“Don’t deny it!” She whips around and purses her lips. Her hands are clenched at her sides, trembling with the urge to morph into something more, and her black eyes stare up into Rose’s with the rage of a Ruby. “Maybe I overstepped, and maybe I can get a bit rowdy sometime; okay, I can admit that. I know it’s been fucking up missions, and there ain’t no denying that. But you can’t just sit there and tell me that you didn’t see all of that and think, ‘Oh, I can just order her to stand down, no problem’. Well, newsflash, princess: problem! I may be following you, but you cannot tell me what to do. Especially not with that look.”  
Rose sighs; her shoulders fall, and she takes her head in her hand. “What look”, she questions irritably.  
“You know the look; the one when you’re trying to be nice and understanding when you’re really just trying to hide the fact that there’s still a bit of Homeworld’s programming left in you.”  
“That’s not true.”  
“You were a Quartz. And not just any Quartz, but the Quartz that everyone, Diamond and Gem, adored.” Bismuth bats her eyes, puckers her lips into an obnoxious smile, and waves her hand with flourish. She then scoffs, dropping the facade, and placing her hands on her hips. “Excluding Pink, of course, but everyone else waited on you like a slave. You yourself weren’t anybody special, but you had way more than what the rest of us had. Tell me you don’t still feel like you’ve got something over us.”  
For her credit, Rose remains silent. She even has the humility to flush hot pink, and she turns away, chin pressed firmly into the palm of her hand. When she speaks, it’s muffled and low, and yet still coherent with the regality of an esteemed Quartz. “I try not to be what I was made to be. But you’re right.” She places her other hand against her stomach and sighs.  
“Sometimes...sometimes, the past still catches up with me.”  
And perhaps it’s the way the ever-present light in her eyes fades at the statement, but the anger that’d been rekindled in Bismuth all but snuffs out; again, there’s still frustration, and maybe a little hurt, but, beneath it all, there’s understanding. Because if Rose can’t shed her privileged disposition, then Bismuth most definitely can’t abandon her abhorrence for people like her. She doubts she will ever see Rose as anything more than a pampered pooch. But she knows what it means to be trapped in a role she never wanted. And she knows how, try as she might, she’ll likely never discard the mold she’d grown to fit.  
“Yeah, well”, Bismuth sighs, lips quirking into a tight smile. “You ain’t the only one.”  
At that, Rose’s eyebrows jump; then, her facial muscles slowly relaxing, she smiles back and laughs. “I suppose so”, she says as she releases a relieved breath. “Maybe we’re all a little broken, huh?”  
“Yeah, maybe.” She slides her hands into her pants pockets and pulls her arms backward into a stretch. “I’d better get back to work. Biggs wasn’t looking too hot last I saw her, and, well, Pearl’s not exactly the best at comforting trauma victims. Time to do some damage control.”  
“Of course”, Rose cedes. “Help as much as you can and take of yourself.”  
“I will. Talk later, okay?”  
“All right. Goodbye.” She reaches above the screen, and the wand-tablet washes over to white; Bismuth grips the device, and it turns back into a wand. Humming, she slides it into her smock, then turns around, roaming through the system of caves before eventually resurfacing.  
When she navigates her way back to the main room, the other Gems have disappeared, her teammates included; on instinct, Bismuth ducks behind a control panel and scrutinizes the area, searching for signs of a scuffle.  
And sure enough, there are signs: most of the already trampled and broken equipment has seen the fury of something, as it now sits in pools of melted metal, oozing and sizzling as it settles into place; along the walls, the markings from before have multiplied and traveled deeper into the earth. For a moment, all Bismuth can do is wonder how the cave is still sound. Just as the thought enters her mind, though, some whizzes through the air and slams into her temple.  
She turns around and finds the other Gems; like Bismuth, they’ve all taken to hiding; Loghart is clinging to one of the lanterns dangling from the ceiling; Biggs is crammed into one of the weapon cubbies; the Carnelian has her face pressed into Biggs’ stomach, hands balled into the orange fabric of Biggs’ blouse.  
Pearl is nowhere to be seen.  
Before Bismuth can further inspect the room, the cave begins to shake; at the mouth of the cave, a metallic arm with an uncanny resemblance to a scythe creeps into the room and begins slicing; another arm enters the arm, followed by a fog-white dome and a long, thin body. When the machine stands at full attention, Bismuth blinks and barely suppresses a smirk, her hand coming up to contain a giggle: it’s a praying mantis.  
And it’s fucking huge.  
While the mantis-bot is poking at the walls, Bismuth glances up at Loghart and makes a “come hither” motion; Loghart shakes her head, so Bismuth glares and points to the steadily increasing cracks in the ceiling. At that, Loghart closes her eyes and leaps from the lantern, landing with a soft thud in Bismuth’s arms; the mantis‘ head whirls around at that, but upon finding nothing to be amiss, it turns and resumes its prodding.  
Bismuth sighs and turns back to Loghart; she lifts her hands and begins to sign. “What in the galaxy happened here?”  
Loghart’s fidgeting, even more so than usual, but she manages to sign out a shaky response: “We were helping the survivors back to our Cruiser when the walls started shaking; we thought it was a quake or something, but then one of those thing’s hands came through and started slicing like wild! We figured we’d just escape after it left, but it never stays gone for long; we’ve been hiding ever since.”  
Bismuth nods. “Pearl?”  
“Her Jasper must’ve imprinted on her or something cause when everything went to shit, she picked her up and just took off. We’re not sure where they went, but Biggs says she saw them disappear into the southern hole.” She crawls closer to Bismuth and clenches her fist, eyes darting over to the mantis-bot. “Bizzie. We’re all that’s left.”  
“Don’t panic.”  
“Our TeleCommunications Center stopped answering a few minutes ago; that ceiling’s ain’t gonna hold for long, and we don’t have any idea where Pearl is. That thing’s gonna find us soon, and we-”  
“Calm the fuck down.” Bismuth takes hold of Loghart’s hand and squeezes.  
Loghart places one of her other hands against her mouth, then uses the last to take hold of a tuft of her; she pulls. “I’ve only been on the force for six months”, she signs frantically. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”  
“That’s okay cause I do. Sort of. Just stick close to me, all right? Imma get us out of here.” When Loghart doesn’t move, Bismuth pats her on the back. “Don’t tell me you’re backing down from a mantis of all things.”  
At that, Loghart smiles. But she still doesn’t look up.  
“This wouldn’t happen to be the same Loghart who got tossed out of the Courts for wrestling tigers on the clock, would it?”  
She rolls her eyes and punches Bismuth’s shoulder. “Quit fucking around.”  
“I’m serious. You’ve kicked ass before, Loghart. You can take this thing.” She squeezes Loghart’s hand harder, then turns around. “Hop on my back”, she whispers. After a moment, Loghart, complies, climbing onto her back and snaking her arms around her neck in a vice-tight grip. Bismuth gives her forearm a light tap, then turns to the weapon cubies. Biggs has abandoned them and begun crawling towards them. After pausing behind their control panel, she takes a moment to readjust the Carnelian in her arms. Then she signs, “We got a plan?”  
Before Bismuth can answer, a green ray erupts from one of the mantis-bot’s arms and takes off one of her dreads. She leaps onto the panel, shifts her hands into giant hammers, and glares at the mantis-bot. “Yeah”, she shouts as she leaps towards it. “Don’t die!”  
She lands with a heavy smack against the dome of the machine before proceeding to slam it. The glass, of course, doesn’t shatter upon impact, but several cracks do appear.  
Beneath her, Biggs has begun attacking the bot’s legs, ducking every time it slices its arms after her. Loghart has hopped off of Bismuth’s back and started stabbing her katana into the bot’s chest. With assaults coming from every end, the mantis loses its balance and crumbles to the ground; the dome shatters upon impact, and pieces of glass collapse, revealing a Gem crouched in its center; she’s got her back to them, and her hands are placed on the massive keyboard before her.  
Bismuth grunts and rushes over to her, morphing her hands into knives. The other Gems follow her lead, each standing at one side of the fallen mantis, prepared to prevent any attempt at escaping. But the Gem isn’t attempting anything. She hasn’t even looked up from the keyboard; her fingers are still mashing buttons, as if she isn’t aware that the fight’s over.  
“Who are you”, Bismuth demands, shoving a knife against the back of the Gem’s neck. “Why are you here?”  
She doesn’t say anything. Bismuth steps forward once more, taking hold of the Gem to turn her around. And then she freezes.  
The Gem rises from her crouch and stands, pulling back her shoulders; her head yanks back in a brutal lurch then forward, pausing just inches before Bismuth’s face. As Biggs moves to bind her hands in a pair of electro-cuffs, the Gem giggles and cocks her head to the side; her flowery, snow-white hair sways back and forward over her eyes as she grins up at Bismuth.  
It’s Beryl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pulled a Bucky. I have no shame.


End file.
